There are a number of royal palaces and grand residences of former Presidents and Prime Ministers where the inhabitants have a little bit more spring in their step following the death of Jeffrey Epstein. The media is rushing to attach the label “conspiracy theory” to any thought that his death might not have been suicide. In my view, given that so many very powerful people will be relieved he is no longer in a position to sing, and given that he was in a maximum security jail following another alleged “suicide attempt” a week ago, it would be a very credulous person who did not view the question of who killed him an open one.
There has been a huge amount of obfuscation and misdirection on the activities of Epstein and his set. To my mind, the article which remains the best starting point for those new to the scandal is this one from Gawker.
Two days ago a federal court unsealed 2000 pages of documents related to the allegations against Epstein. Of these the most important appears to be a witness statement from Virginia Giuffre alleging that while a minor she had sex at Epstein’s direction with Senate Majority leader George Mitchell and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, plus a variety of senior foreign politicians.
Epstein’s sexual activities and partying with young girls were carried out in full view of key friends, his domestic and office staff, his pilots and of course the participants. There is no shortage of potential witnesses. Several of these really ought to be taking great care – though if I were them I would certainly eschew any protection involving US security services or law enforcement. Ghislaine Maxwell might take heed of her father’s fate and avoid swimming for a few years.
(I am probably not the only one old enough to compare the many similarities between Robert Maxwell’s asset stripping career and that of Philip Green. The progress of society after thirty years of Thatcher, New Labour and returned Tories meaning that Green by contrast got no criminal charges and much bigger yachts.)
In the UK, Ms Giuffre’s alleged relationship with Prince Andrew has been mentioned in the media. In fact the evidence that she had a relationship with Prince Andrew of some sort is overwhelming. Here is some of the actual evidence from the court documents.
The age of heterosexual consent in England is 16 and there is no indication that Prince Andrew is doing anything illegal in this photograph in which Ms Giuffre is 17. Nor is the photo in itself evidence of sex, though it certainly is intimate. The notion however that Ms Giuffre was “lent out” to Andrew may have legal implications as she was flown into the country, allegedly for the purpose.
No satisfactory alternative explanation has been offered as to what might have been happening here, as Ms Guffre’s lawyers noted.
No further details appear in the documents to amplify Ms Giuffre’s claim that she was forced to have sex with a “well known Prime Minister”, other than to repeat the claim. But what is plain is that her tale is not entirely invention. Just how much more did Epstein know, and who might he have taken down with him?
The truth is that sexual abuse by the rich and famous transcends all political boundaries. Bill Clinton was very frequently on Epstein’s plane and Epstein joins the very long list of those connected to the Clintons who died in dubious circumstances.
Two coincidences – the first being the bruise marks on the neck sustained in Epstein’s first “suicide attempt” in jail – remind me of the case of John Ashe, the senior official very close to the Clintons who died with bruise marks on his neck, when he accidentally dropped his barbell on his throat while bench-pressing alone at home.
Ashe was charged and awaiting trial for receiving corrupt funds from businessman Ng Lap Seng while Ashe was serving in the USA’s turn as President of the UN General Assembly. Ng Lap Seng, a six time visitor to the Clinton White House, had previously been accused of making very large illegal donations to Clinton campaign funds, and was subsequently arrested while entering the USA with over US $4 million in cash. Unlike the Clintons, Ashe was charged with taking Seng’s money and rather like Epstein may have had an interesting song to sing while going down, had he not conveniently dropped the barbell on his throat.
I said that the first thing that jogged me to link the Epstein/Clinton and the Ashe/Clinton cases was the bruise marks on the throat. The second is that both stories have been debunked by self-proclaimed “conspiracy-busting” website Snopes – in a manner which shows that Snopes has no regard for the truth whatsoever.
In the case of John Ashe, Snopes wrote an utterly tendentious piece of “myth-busting” which stated that it was a myth that Ashe’s death occurred shortly before his trial and that he was not due to testify against the Clintons. Snopes failed to mention that Ashe, a very senior Clinton appointee, was charged with taking corrupt money from precisely the same man who had been very widely accused of giving corrupt money to the Clintons. And while it was true his trial was not imminent, his pre-trial deposition was.
In the Epstein/Clinton case Snopes wrote a piece debunking the notion that this is a photograph of Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private jet.
Snopes sets out to prove that this is not Epstein’s private jet but that of another billionaire, and that the girl is not Rachel Chandler. For the sake of argument I am prepared to accept what they say on both counts. But is the sensible reaction to that photo to say “Oh that’s OK it’s another billionaire’s jet” or to say “Why is Bill Clinton on a billionaire’s private jet in an intimate pose with a worryingly young female”? As with the Prince Andrew photo, although it has been circulating for years no alternative innocent explanation is on offer.
And the fact that this is another billionaire’s plane should open again the much wider question of networks of the rich and the powerful indulging each other’s passion for sexual exploitation of the young. It is a great shame that in the UK, the Establishment has been able to characterise the falsifications of Carl Beech as discrediting the entire notion of historical child sexual abuse. It is as though one person making up stories about a Bishop would mean there was never child exploitation in the Catholic Church.
The deeper question is why such a significant proportion of the rich and powerful have a propensity to want to assuage their sexual desires on the most vulnerable and powerless in society, as opposed to forming relationships among their peers. I suspect it is connected to the kind of sociopathy that leads somebody to seek or hoard power or wealth in the first place.
It is not necessary to develop that idea further, to understand that the Epstein case had given us a glimpse of criminal sexual behaviour which beyond doubt involves many powerful people. It is essential that the threads that can be grasped are now worked on assiduously to uncover the entire network.
Jeffrey Epstein paid for his closest aide Ghislaine Maxwell pilot's license and then bought her a $4m executive helicopter, DailyMail.com can reveal
The pedophile splashed out on a Sikorsky S-76C - nicknamed Air Ghislaine 2 - so she could transport a tranche of girls to Little St James in the US Virgin Islands
Maxwell has been accused of acting as Epstein's Madam, grooming underage girls for her boss to allegedly sexually abuse
Maxwell would pick up the billionaire's visitors from Cyril E. King Airport on St Thomas Island and transport them directly to the 70-acre Epstein property
The 57-year-old received her pilot's license to fly helicopters in 2007 - the same year Epstein struck a sweetheart non-prosecution deal with the Florida DA
Epstein bought Maxwell the helicopter in 2008 and photos obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, show the interior of the luxury twin turboshaft chopper
Epstein later replaced the Sikorsky with a modern Bell 430 chopper which Maxwell also flew and then piloted by Epstein's personal pilot Larry Visoski
DailyMail.com revealed on Wednesday that Maxwell has been hiding out at her boyfriend's home in Manchester-by-the-Sea outside of Boston
By RYAN PARRY WEST COAST EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:04, 16 August 2019 | UPDATED: 19:56, 16 August 2019
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Jeffrey Epstein paid for his closest aide Ghislaine Maxwell pilot's license and then bought her a $4 million executive helicopter to ferry young girls to his private Island, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The pedophile splashed out on the top of the range Sikorsky S-76C - nicknamed Air Ghislaine 2 - so she could transport a tranche of girls to Little St James in the US Virgin Islands.
And these photos, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, show the interior of the luxury twin turboshaft chopper that transported guests to the now infamous island.
Epstein and his guests will have traveled in style sat on plush brown leather seats aboard the spacious aircraft.
The plush cabin also boated mahogany trim and storage compartments, recessed lighting, an iPhone dock and sleek tinted windows.
Pilot Maxwell - who has been accused of acting as Epstein's Madam, grooming underage girls for her boss - would pick up the billionaire's visitors from Cyril E. King Airport in Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas Island and transport them directly to the 70-acre Epstein property.
Jeffrey Epstein paid for his closest aide Ghislaine Maxwell pilot's license and then bought her a $4m executive helicopter, DailyMail.com can reveal +11
Jeffrey Epstein paid for his closest aide Ghislaine Maxwell pilot's license and then bought her a $4m executive helicopter, DailyMail.com can reveal
The pedophile splashed out on a Sikorsky S-76C - nicknamed Air Ghislaine 2 - so she could transport a tranche of girls to Little St James in the US Virgin Islands +11
The pedophile splashed out on a Sikorsky S-76C - nicknamed Air Ghislaine 2 - so she could transport a tranche of girls to Little St James in the US Virgin Islands
The 57-year-old received her pilot's license to fly helicopters in 2007 - the same year Epstein struck a sweetheart non-prosecution deal with the Florida DA +11
The 57-year-old received her pilot's license to fly helicopters in 2007 - the same year Epstein struck a sweetheart non-prosecution deal with the Florida DA
The private island - which Epstein nicknamed 'Little St Jeff's' but which locals have dubbed 'Pedophile Island' - sits off the coast of St Thomas and includes a villa-style compound, library, cinema, detached bathhouse, a temple and cabanas +11
The private island - which Epstein nicknamed 'Little St Jeff's' but which locals have dubbed 'Pedophile Island' - sits off the coast of St Thomas and includes a villa-style compound, library, cinema, detached bathhouse, a temple and cabanas
The private island - which Epstein nicknamed 'Little St Jeff's' but which locals have dubbed 'Pedophile Island' - sits off the coast of St Thomas and includes a villa-style compound, library, cinema, detached bathhouse, a temple and cabanas.
Epstein flew underage girls there as recently as this year, according to a report in Vanity Fair.
And following the money manager's arrest on two charges of child sex trafficking earlier this month the disgraced mogul's fleet of luxury aircraft has once again come under the microscope.
Prosecutors have accused the 66-year-old billionaire of abusing girls as young as 14 in a 'vast network of underage victims' - and his fleet - which includes two private jets - has always been considered either a venue for some of the abuse or a means of secretly trafficking the underage girls.
According to FAA records Epstein's former long term girlfriend and closest aide Maxwell received her pilot's license to fly helicopters in 2007 - the same year Epstein struck a sweetheart non-prosecution deal with the Florida DA.
Despite serving some time in prison Epstein bought Maxwell a brand new $4 million Sikorsky S-76C in 2008.
The helicopter, tail number N722JE, was registered to his Delaware business Freedom Air International, which lists the same address as another company Air Ghislaine, Inc
The helicopter, tail number N722JE, was registered to his Delaware business Freedom Air International, which lists the same address as another company Air Ghislaine, Inc
These photos, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, show the interior of the luxury twin turboshaft chopper that transported guests to the now infamous island +11
These photos, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, show the interior of the luxury twin turboshaft chopper that transported guests to the now infamous island
An iPhone dock on the helicopter +11
Epstein and his guests will have traveled in style sat on plush brown leather seats aboard the spacious aircraft +11
Epstein and his guests will have traveled in style sat on plush brown leather seats aboard the spacious aircraft
The plush cabin also boated mahogany trim and storage compartments, recessed lighting, an iPhone dock and sleek tinted windows +11
The plush cabin also boated mahogany trim and storage compartments, recessed lighting, an iPhone dock and sleek tinted windows
The helicopter, tail number N722JE, was registered to his Delaware business Freedom Air International, which lists the same address as another company Air Ghislaine, Inc.
It's now understood that Epstein continued his criminal activity almost immediately after being released from prison and will have made use of the chopper to fulfill his sordid fantasies.
Maxwell, daughter of late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, has denied accusations made in civil suits of aiding and participating in Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors despite being implicated by several of his alleged victims.
But the 57-year-old British socialite has been among the financier’s closest associates for almost three decades.
According to a report last week in Vanity Fair locals on St Thomas said Epstein had been transporting underage girls to his island by helicopter for years, some as recently as this year.
This a decade after he was forced to register as a convicted sex offender.
Two employees who worked at the local airstrip on St Thomas told Vanity Fair that they witnessed Epstein boarding his private plane on many occasions in the company of girls who appeared to be under the age of consent.
Records show that Epstein also had another helicopter, a Bell Jet Ranger, which Maxwell flew at his sprawling Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. The blue and white chopper (pictured) has the tail number N491GM - GM standing for Ghislaine Maxwell - and was nicknamed Air Ghislaine 1 +11
Records show that Epstein also had another helicopter, a Bell Jet Ranger, which Maxwell flew at his sprawling Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. The blue and white chopper (pictured) has the tail number N491GM - GM standing for Ghislaine Maxwell - and was nicknamed Air Ghislaine 1
According to the staff, the girls arrived with Epstein aboard one of his two Gulfstream jets before boarding a helicopter.
'On multiple occasions I saw Epstein exit his helicopter, stand on the tarmac in full view of my tower, and board his private jet with children - female children,' a former air traffic controller at the airstrip told the magazine.
FAA registration records show the S-76 was eventually sold to another company called ASI Wings, LLC.
Epstein replaced it with a more modern Bell 430 executive chopper which Maxwell is understood to also have flown and was also piloted by Epstein's personal pilot Larry Visoski.
The sleek jet black helicopter, tail number N331JE, is a four-bladed, twin-engined, nine-seat aircraft marketed as a high-speed corporate chopper capable of speeds up to 257km/h.
Seen here in more exclusive photos the Bell 430s are sold for around $6 million.
On August 11 last year Visoski posted a photo of the Bell 430 alongside Epstein's Gulfstream IV private jet, with the tag: 'How we Roll, Black on Black, #Bell430, #Gulfstream, #Avgeek, #aviation #flying #GIV #430 #IslandLife, #MAGA #����'
FAA registration records show the S-76 was eventually sold. Epstein replaced it with this Bell 430 executive chopper which Maxwell is understood to also have flown and was also piloted by Epstein's personal pilot Larry Visoski. Seen here in more exclusive photos the Bell 430s are sold for around $6 million +11
FAA registration records show the S-76 was eventually sold. Epstein replaced it with this Bell 430 executive chopper which Maxwell is understood to also have flown and was also piloted by Epstein's personal pilot Larry Visoski. Seen here in more exclusive photos the Bell 430s are sold for around $6 million
The sleek jet black helicopter, tail number N331JE, is a four-bladed, twin-engined, nine-seat aircraft marketed as a high-speed corporate chopper capable of speeds up to 257km/h +11
The sleek jet black helicopter, tail number N331JE, is a four-bladed, twin-engined, nine-seat aircraft marketed as a high-speed corporate chopper capable of speeds up to 257km/h
Records show that Epstein also had another helicopter, a Bell Jet Ranger, which Maxwell flew at his sprawling Zorro Ranch in New Mexico.
The blue and white chopper has the tail number N491GM - GM standing for Ghislaine Maxwell - and was nicknamed Air Ghislaine 1.
Epstein's Chief pilot Visoski runs Epstein's fleet of private jets and helicopters and has flown the hedge fund mogul around the world for 20 years.
Notably Visoski flew Epstein's larger 727 jet - the infamous Lolita Express - which carried prominent passengers including President Bill Clinton, British royal Prince Andrew as well as Hollywood stars Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker and supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:50 am Post subject:
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case
Epstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive and sophisticated operation that offers a frightening window into how deeply tied the U.S. government is to the modern-day equivalents of organized crime.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-origins-jeffrey-epstein-blackma il-roy-cohn/260621/
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
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Despite his “sweetheart” deal and having seemingly evaded justice, billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was arrested earlier this month on federal charges for sex trafficking minors. Epstein’s arrest has again brought increased media attention to many of his famous friends, the current president among them.
Many questions have since been asked about how much Epstein’s famous friends knew of his activities and exactly what Epstein was up to. The latter arguably received the most attention after it was reported that Alex Acosta — who arranged Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal in 2008 and who recently resigned as Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary following Epstein’s arrest — claimed that the mysterious billionaire had worked for “intelligence.”
Other investigations have made it increasingly clear that Epstein was running a blackmail operation, as he had bugged the venues — whether at his New York mansion or Caribbean island getaway — with microphones and cameras to record the salacious interactions that transpired between his guests and the underage girls that Epstein exploited. Epstein appeared to have stored much of that blackmail in a safe on his private island.
Claims of Epstein’s links and his involvement in a sophisticated, well-funded sexual blackmail operation have, surprisingly, spurred few media outlets to examine the history of intelligence agencies both in the U.S. and abroad conducting similar sexual blackmail operations, many of which also involved underage prostitutes.
In the U.S. alone, the CIA operated numerous sexual blackmail operations throughout the country, employing prostitutes to target foreign diplomats in what the Washington Post once nicknamed the CIA’s “love traps.” If one goes even farther back into the U.S. historical record it becomes apparent that these tactics and their use against powerful political and influential figures significantly predate the CIA and even its precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In fact, they were pioneered years earlier by none other than the American Mafia.
In the course of this investigation, MintPress discovered that a handful of figures who were influential in American organized crime during and after Prohibition were directly engaged in sexual blackmail operations that they used for their own, often dark, purposes.
In Part I of this exclusive investigation, MintPress will examine how a mob-linked businessman with deep ties to notorious gangster Meyer Lansky developed close ties with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while also running a sexual blackmail operation for decades, which later became a covert part of the anti-communist crusade of the 1950s led by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), himself known throughout Washington for having a habit of drunkenly groping underage teenaged girls.
Yet, it would be one of McCarthy’s closest aides who would take over the ring in later years, trafficking minors and expanding this sexual blackmail operation at the same time he expanded his own political influence, putting him in close contact with prominent figures including former President Ronald Reagan and a man who would later become president, Donald Trump.
As will be revealed in Part II, after this figure’s death, the blackmail operation continued under various successors in different cities and there is strong evidence that Jeffrey Epstein became one of them.
Samuel Bronfman and the Mob
The Prohibition Era in the United States is often used as an example of how banning recreational substances not only increases their popularity but also causes a boom in criminal activity. Indeed, it was Prohibition that greatly increased the strength of the American Mafia, as the top crime lords of the day grew rich through the clandestine trade and sale of alcohol in addition to gambling and other activities.
It is through the bootlegging trade of the 1920s and the early 1930s that this story begins, as it brought together key figures whose successors and affiliates would eventually create a series of blackmail and sex trafficking rings that would give rise to the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, the “Lolita Express” and “Orgy Island.”
Samuel Bronfman never planned to become a major producer of liquor but true to his family’s last name, which means “brandy man” in Yiddish, he eventually began distributing alcohol as an extension of his family’s hotel business. During Canada’s Prohibition period, which was briefer than and preceded that of its southern neighbor, the Bronfman family business used loopholes to skirt the law and find technically legal ways to sell alcohol in the hotels and stores the family owned. The family relied on its connections with members of the American Mafia to illegally smuggle alcohol from the United States.
Soon after Prohibition ended in Canada, it began in the United States and, by the time the flow of illegal alcohol had turned the other way, the Bronfmans – whose business ventures were then being led by Sam Bronfman and his brothers — were relatively late to an already flourishing bootlegging trade.
“We were late starters in the two most lucrative markets – on the high seas and across the Detroit River. What came out of the border trade in Saskatchewan was insignificant by comparison,” Bronfman once told Canadian journalist Terence Robertson, who was then writing a biography of Bronfman. Nonetheless, “this was when we started to make our real money,” Bronfman recounted. Robertson’s biography on Bronfman was never published, as he died under mysterious circumstances soon after warning his colleagues that he had uncovered unsavory information about the Bronfman family.
Samuel Bronfman mob
Samuel Bronfman pictured in 1937 with his sons Edgar and Charles
Key to Bronfman’s success during American Prohibition were the ties his family had cultivated with organized crime during Canada’s Prohibition, ties that led many prominent members of the mob in the United States to favor Bronfman as a business partner. Bronfman liquor was purchased in massive quantities by many crime lords who still live on in American legend, including Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Moe Dalitz, Abner “Longy” Zwillman and Meyer Lansky.
Most of Bronfman’s mob associates during Prohibition were members of what became known as the National Crime Syndicate, which a 1950s Senate investigative body known as the Kefauver Committee described as a confederation dominated by Italian-American and Jewish-American mobs. During that investigation, some of the biggest names in the American Mafia named Bronfman as a central figure in their bootlegging operations. The widow of notorious American mob boss Meyer Lansky even recounted how Bronfman had thrown lavish dinner parties for her husband.
Years later, Samuel Bronfman’s children and grandchildren, their family’s ties to the criminal underworld intact, would go on to associate closely with Leslie Wexner, allegedly the source of much of Epstein’s mysterious wealth, and other mob-linked “philanthropists,” and some would even manage their own sexual blackmail operations, including the recently busted blackmail-based “sex cult” NXIVM. The later generations of the Bronfman family, particularly Samuel Bronfman’s sons Edgar and Charles, will be discussed in greater detail in Part II of this report.
Lewis Rosenstiel’s dark secret
Crucial to Bronfman’s Prohibition-era bootlegging operations were two middlemen, one of whom was Lewis “Lew” Rosenstiel. Rosenstiel got his start working at his uncle’s distillery in Kentucky before Prohibition. Once the law banning alcohol was in force, Rosenstiel created the Schenley Products Company, which would later become one of the largest liquor companies in North America.
Though he was a high school drop-out and not particularly well-connected socially at the time, Rosenstiel happened to have a “chance” meeting with Winston Churchill in 1922 while on vacation in the French Riviera. According to the New York Times, Churchill “advised him [Rosenstiel] to prepare for the return of liquor sales in the United States.” Rosenstiel somehow managed to secure the funding of the elite and respected Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers to finance his purchase of shuttered distilleries.
Officially, Rosenstiel is said to have built his company and wealth after Prohibition, by following Churchill’s advice to prepare for Repeal. However, he was clearly involved in bootlegging operations and was even indicted for bootlegging in 1929, though he evaded conviction. Like Bronfman, Rosenstiel was close to organized crime, particularly members of the mostly Jewish-American and Italian-American mob alliance known as the National Crime Syndicate.
Subsequent New York state legislative investigations would allege that Rosenstiel “was part of a ‘consortium’ with underworld figures that bought liquor in Canada [from Samuel Bronfman]”, whose other members were “Meyer Lansky, the reputed organized crime leader; Joseph Fusco, an associate of late Chicago gangster Al Capone and Joseph Linsey, a Boston man Mr. Kelly [the congressional investigator testifying] identified as a convicted bootlegger.” Rosenstiel’s relationship with these men, particularly Lansky, would continue long after Prohibition and Samuel Bronfman, for his part, would also maintain his mob ties.
In addition to his friends in the mob, Rosenstiel also cultivated close ties with the FBI, developing a close relationship with longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and making Hoover’s right-hand man and longtime assistant at the FBI, Louis Nichols, the Vice President of his Schenley empire in 1957.
Despite their similar backgrounds as bootlegger barons turned “respectable” businessmen, Bronfman’s and Rosenstiel’s personalities were drastically different and their relationship was complicated, at best. One example of the dissimilarities between North America’s top liquor barons was how they treated their staff. Bronfman was not necessarily known for being a cruel boss, whereas Rosenstiel was known for his erratic and “monstrous” behavior towards employees as well as his unusual practice of bugging his offices in order to hear what employees said about him when he wasn’t present.
Lewis Rosenstiel Roy Cohn
Rosenstiel was connected to both the FBI and to organized crime
Such differences between Bronfman and Rosenstiel were also reflected in their personal lives. While Bronfman married only once and was loyal to his wife, Rosenstiel was married five times and was known for his relatively closeted bisexual antics, a part of his life that was well-known to many of his close associates and employees.
Though for years there were only hints to this other side of the controversial businessman, details emerged years later during a divorce proceeding brought by Rosenstiel’s fourth wife, Susan Kaufman, that would back the claims. Kaufman alleged that Rosenstiel hosted extravagant parties that included “boy prostitutes” that her husband had hired “for the enjoyment” of certain guests, which included important government officials and prominent figures in America’s criminal underworld. Kaufman would later make the same claims under oath during the hearing of the New York’s State Joint Legislative Committee on Crime in the early 1970s.
Not only did Rosenstiel organize these parties, but he also made sure that their venues were bugged with microphones that recorded the antics of his high-profile guests. Those audio recordings, Kaufman alleged, were then kept for the purpose of blackmail. Though Kaufman’s claims are shocking, her testimony was deemed credible and held in high regard by the former chief counsel of the Crime Committee, New York Judge Edward McLaughlin, and committee investigator William Gallinaro and aspects of her testimony were later corroborated by two separate witnesses who were unknown to Kaufman.
These “blackmail parties” offer a window into an operation that would later become more sophisticated and grow dramatically in the 1950s under Rosenstiel’s “field commander” (a nickname given by Rosenstiel to an individual to be named shortly in this report). Many of the people connected to Rosenstiel’s “field commander” during the 70s and 80s have again found their names in the press following the recent arrest of Jeffrey Epstein.
The “Untouchable” Mobster
Bronfman and Rosenstiel became legendary in the North American liquor business, in part due to their fight for supremacy in the industry, which the New York Times described as often erupting “into bitter personal and corporate battles.” Despite their dueling in the corporate world, the one thing that united the two businessmen more than anything else was their close connection to American organized crime, particularly renowned mobster Meyer Lansky.
Lansky is one of the most notorious gangsters in the history of American organized crime and is notable for being the only famous mobster rising to notoriety in the 1920s who managed to die an old man and never serve a day in jail.
Lansky’s long life and ability to avoid prison time was largely the result of his close relationships to powerful businessmen like Bronfman and Rosenstiel (among many others), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as his role in establishing several blackmail and extortion rings that helped him keep the law at arm’s length. Indeed, when Lansky was finally charged with a crime in the 1970s, it was the Internal Revenue Service that brought the charges, not the FBI, and he was charged with and acquitted of tax evasion.
Lansky was remarkably close to both Bronfman and Rosenstiel. Bronfman regularly threw “lavish dinner parties” in Lansky’s honor both during and after Prohibition. These parties were remembered fondly by Lansky’s wife, and Lansky in turn did favors for Bronfman, ranging from exclusive protection of his shipments during Prohibition to getting him tickets to coveted “fight of the century” boxing matches.
Rosenstiel also threw regular dinner parties honoring Lansky. Susan Kaufman, Rosenstiel’s ex-wife, claimed to have taken numerous pictures of her ex-husband and Lansky socializing and partying together, photos that were also seen by Mary Nichols of The Philadelphia Inquirer. In addition, Lansky, per Kaufman’s recollection, was one of the individuals that Rosenstiel sought to protect from legal scrutiny as part of his child prostitution and blackmail ring targeting high-ranking officials, and he was overheard saying that if the government “ever brings pressure against Lansky or any of us, we’ll use this [a specific recording taken at one of the ‘parties’] as blackmail.”
Lansky was known to address Rosenstiel as “Supreme Commander,” a title that would later be used to refer to Rosenstiel by another individual deeply connected to the mob and sexual blackmail operations, previously referred to in this report as Rosenstiel’s “Field Commander.”
Lansky also had close ties to the CIA and U.S. military intelligence. During World War II, Lansky — along with his associate Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel — worked with Naval intelligence in what was codenamed “Operation Underworld,” an operation the existence of which the government denied for over 40 years.
Journalist and noted chronicler of CIA covert activities, Douglas Valentine, noted in his book The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World that the government’s cooperation with the Mafia during World War II led to its expansion after the war and set the stage for its future collaboration with U.S. intelligence.
According to Valentine:
Top government officials were also aware that the government’s Faustian pact with the Mafia during World War II had allowed the hoods to insinuate themselves into mainstream America. In return for services rendered during the war, Mafia bosses were protected from prosecution for dozens of unsolved murders. […]
The Mafia was a huge problem in 1951 [when the Kefauver Committee was convened], equivalent to terrorism today. But it was also a protected branch of the CIA, which was co-opting criminal organizations around the world and using them in its secret war against the Soviets and Red Chinese. The Mafia had collaborated with Uncle Sam and had emerged from World War II energized and empowered. They controlled cities across the country.”
Indeed, not long after its creation, the CIA forged ties with Lansky at the behest of CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton. The CIA would later turn to the Lansky-linked mob in the early 1960s as part of its consistently fruitless quest to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, showing that the CIA maintained its contacts with Lansky-controlled elements of the Mafia long after the initial meeting with Lansky took place.
The CIA also had close connections to associates of Lansky, such as Edward Moss, who did public relations work for Lansky and was said to be of “interest” to the CIA by the agency’s then-inspector general J.S. Earman. Harry “Happy” Meltzer was also another Lansky associate that was a CIA asset and the CIA asked Meltzer to join an assassination team in December 1960.
In addition to the CIA, Lansky was also connected to a foreign intelligence agency through Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and high-ranking official in Israel’s Mossad, whose bank – the International Credit Bank of Geneva – laundered much of Lansky’s ill-gotten gains and recycled them into legitimate American businesses.
Meyer Lansky Roy Cohn Israel
Lansky outside the High Court of Israel where he sought permission to emigrate in 1972. Photo | AP
Journalist Ed Reid, author of the Virginia Hill biography The Mistress and the Mafia, wrote that Lansky was attempting to entrap powerful people through sexual blackmail as far back as 1939. Reid contends that Lansky sent Ms. Hill to Mexico, where his West Coast connections had established a drug ring that later involved the OSS, the forerunner to the CIA, to seduce numerous “top politicians, army officers, diplomats and police officials.”
Eventually, Lansky was credited with obtaining compromising photos of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sometime in the 1940s, which showed “Hoover in some kind of gay situation”, according to a former Lansky associate, who also said that Lansky had often claimed, “I fixed that sonofabitch.” The photos showed Hoover engaged in sexual activity with his long-time friend, FBI Deputy Director Clyde Tolson.
At some point, these photos fell into the hands of CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton, who later showed the photos to several other CIA officials, including John Weitz and Gordon Novel. Angleton was in charge of the CIA’s relationship with the FBI and Israel’s Mossad until he left the agency in 1972 and, as was recently mentioned, he was also in contact with Lansky.
Anthony Summers, former BBC journalist and author of Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, has argued that it was not Lansky, but William Donovan, the director of the OSS, who obtained the original photos of Hoover and later shared them with Lansky.
Summers also stated that “To [gangster Frank] Costello and Lansky, the ability to corrupt politicians, policemen and judges was fundamental to Mafia operations. The way they found to deal with Hoover, according to several mob sources, involved his homosexuality.” This anecdote shows that Lanksy and the CIA maintained a covert relationship, which included, among other things, the sharing of blackmail material (i.e., “intelligence”).
It is also possible that Hoover was ensnared by the mob during one of Rosenstiel’s “blackmail parties,” at which Hoover sometimes found himself in attendance with prominent figures of the Mafia. Hoover was said to have worn women’s clothing at the some of the events and Meyer Lansky’s wife later said that her husband had photos of the former FBI director in drag. Furthermore, Hoover is on record showing an unusual concern in the FBI’s handling of Rosenstiel’s criminal links as early as 1939, the same year that his close associate Lansky was actively orchestrating the sexual blackmail of powerful political figures.
The blackmail acquired on Hoover and the mob’s possession of the evidence has been cited as a major factor in Hoover’s decades-long denial that nationwide networks of organized crime were a serious issue. Hoover asserted that it was a decentralized, local issue and therefore outside of the bureau’s jurisdiction. By the time Hoover finally acknowledged the existence of national organized crime networks in 1963, they were so entrenched in the U.S. establishment that they were untouchable.
Congressional crime consultant Ralph Salerno told Summers in 1993 that Hoover’s willful ignorance of organized crime for most of his career as FBI director “allowed organized crime to grow very strong in economic and political terms, so that it became a much bigger threat to the wellbeing of this country than it would have been if it had been addressed much sooner.”
J. Edgar Hoover: Blackmail Victim?
Most records place the beginning of Hoover’s relationship with Rosenstiel in the 1950s, the same decade when Susan Kaufman reported that Hoover was attending Rosenstiel’s blackmail parties. Rosenstiel’s FBI file, obtained by Anthony Summers, cites the first Rosenstiel meeting as taking place in 1956, though Summers notes that there is evidence that they had met much earlier. After requesting the meeting, Rosenstiel was granted a personal face-to-face with the director in a matter of hours. The FBI file on Rosenstiel also reveals that the liquor baron heavily lobbied Hoover to aid his business interests.
During that time, the salacious details of Hoover’s sex life were already known to the U.S. intelligence community and to the mob, and Hoover was aware that they knew of his closeted sexuality and penchant for women’s clothing. Yet, Hoover apparently seemed to embrace the very type of sexual blackmail operation that had compromised his private life, given that he was seen at many of Rosenstiel’s “blackmail parties” in the 1950s and 1960s, including at venues such as Rosenstiel’s personal home and later at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel. Hoover’s penchant for dressing in drag was also described by two witnesses who were not connected to Susan Kaufman.
J Edgar Hoover Roy Cohn
Hoover with Dorothy Lamour on the set of The Greatest Show on Earth in 1951
Soon after their first “official” meeting, the public relationship between the two men quickly flourished, with Hoover even sending Rosenstiel flowers when he fell ill. Summers reported that, in 1957, Rosenstiel was heard telling Hoover during a meeting, “your wish is my command.” Their relationship remained close and intimate throughout the 1960s and beyond.
Like Rosenstiel, Hoover was well-known for amassing blackmail on friend and foe alike. Hoover’s office contained “secret files” on numerous powerful people in Washington and beyond, files he used to gain favors and protect his status as FBI director for as long as he wished.
Hoover’s own propensity for blackmail suggests that he may have associated with Rosenstiel’s sexual blackmail operation more directly, given he already knew he was compromised and his involvement in the operation would have served as a means of procuring the blackmail he coveted for his own purposes. Indeed, if Hoover was merely being blackmailed and extorted by the Lansky-Rosenstiel connected mob, it is unlikely that he would have been so friendly to Rosenstiel, Lansky and the other mobsters at these gatherings and participated in them with such regularity.
According to journalist and author Burton Hersh, Hoover was also tied to Sherman Kaminsky, who ran a sexual blackmail operation in New York involving young male prostitutes. That operation was busted and investigated in a 1966 extortion probe led by Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan, though the FBI quickly took over the investigation and photos of Hoover and Kaminsky together soon disappeared from the case file.
Hoover and Rosenstiel’s deep ties would continue to develop over the years, an example of which can be seen in Rosenstiel’s hiring of long-time Hoover aide Louis Nichols as the vice president of his Schenley liquor empire and Rosenstiel’s donation of over $1 million to the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, which Nichols also ran at the time.
There is also more than one documented occasion wherein Hoover attempted to use blackmail to protect Rosenstiel and his “field commander,” none other than the infamous Roy Cohn, the other key figure in Rosenstiel’s sexual blackmail operation involving minors.
The Making of a Monster
Decades after his death, Roy Cohn remains a controversial figure in large part because of his close, personal relationship with current U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet reports on Cohn, both in recent and in past years, often miss the mark in their characterization of the man who became closely associated with the Reagan White House, the CIA, the FBI, organized crime and, incidentally, many of the figures who would later surround Jeffrey Epstein.
To understand the true nature of the man, it is essential to examine his rise to power in the early 1950s when, at just 23 years of age, he became a key figure in the high-profile trial of Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and later as the right-hand man of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).
Cohn’s dedication to anti-communist activities in the 1950s is allegedly what first endeared him to J. Edgar Hoover, whom he first met in 1952. During that meeting, as described by Hersh in Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America, Hoover expressed admiration for Cohn’s aggressive and manipulative tactics and told Cohn to “call me directly” whenever he had information worth sharing. From that point on, Cohn and Hoover “traded favors, effusive compliments, gifts and elaborate private dinners. It quickly became ‘Roy’ and ‘Edgar.’” Hersh also describes Hoover as Cohn’s soon to be “consigliere.”
The date and circumstances around Cohn’s introduction to Rosenstiel are harder to come by. It is possible that the connection was made through Roy Cohn’s father, Albert Cohn, a prominent judge and an influential figure in the New York City Democratic Party apparatus then run by Edward Flynn. It was later revealed that the Democratic organization dominated by Flynn and based in the Bronx had long-standing connections to organized crime, including associates of Meyer Lansky.
Regardless of how or when it began, the relationship between Cohn and Rosenstiel was close and was often likened to that of a father and son. They were said to frequently salute each other in public and remained close until Rosenstiel was near death, at which point Cohn attempted to trick his then-barely conscious and senile “friend” and client into naming him the executor and trustee of the liquor magnate’s estate, valued at $75 million (more than $334 million in today’s dollars).
LIFE magazine reported in 1969 that Cohn and Rosenstiel had for years referred to one another as “Field Commander” and “Supreme Commander,” respectively. Media references to these nicknames appear in other articles from the period.
Though LIFE and other outlets had interpreted this as merely an anecdote about the nicknames shared in jest between close friends, the fact that notorious crime lord Meyer Lansky also called Rosenstiel “Supreme Commander” and the fact that Cohn and Rosenstiel would later become intimately involved in the same pedophile sex ring suggests that there may have been more to these “nicknames.” After all, the mob to which Rosenstiel was connected often used military-themed titles like “soldier” and “lieutenant” to differentiate the rank and importance of its members.
Once he had made his connection with Hoover, Cohn’s star began to rise even higher in Washington. Hoover’s recommendation of Cohn would become the deciding factor in his appointment as Sen. McCarthy’s general counsel over Robert Kennedy, a rival and bitter enemy of Cohn’s.
Joseph McCarthy Roy Cohn
McCarthy covers the mic while having a whispered discussion with Cohn during a 1954 committee hearing. Photo | AP
Though Cohn was ruthless and seemingly untouchable as McCarthy’s counsel and helped the senator destroy many careers during both the red and lavender scares, his antics in relation to his work on the committee would eventually lead to his downfall after he attempted to blackmail the Army in return for preferential treatment for committee consultant and Cohn’s rumored lover, David Schine.
After he was forced to leave McCarthy’s side due to the scandal, Cohn returned to New York to live with his mother and practice law. A few years later New York Judge David Peck, a long-time associate of former CIA Director Alan Dulles, orchestrated Cohn’s hire to the New York law firm Saxe, Bacon and O’Shea — which would later become Saxe, Bacon and Bolan after Tom Bolan, a friend of Cohn’s, became a partner in the firm. Upon his hire, Cohn brought the firm a slew of Mafia-linked clients, including high-ranking members of the Gambino crime family, the Genovese crime family and, of course, Lewis Rosenstiel.
What happened in Suite 233?
The connections Roy Cohn built during the 1950s made him a well-known public figure and translated into great political influence that peaked during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet, as Cohn built his public image, he was also developing a dark private life, which would come to be dominated by the same blackmail pedophile racket that appears to have first begun with Lewis Rosenstiel.
One of the “blackmail parties” Susan Kaufman attended with her then-husband Lewis Rosenstiel was hosted by Cohn in 1958 at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, suite 233. Kaufman described Cohn’s suite as a “beautiful suite…all done in light blue.” She described being introduced to Hoover, who was in drag, by Cohn, who told her that Hoover’s name was “Mary” in a fit of barely concealed laughter. Kaufman testified that young boys were present and Kaufman claimed that Cohn, Hoover and her ex-husband engaged in sexual activity with these minors.
New York attorney John Klotz, tasked with investigating Cohn for a case well after Kaufman’s testimony, also found evidence of the “blue suite” at the Plaza Hotel and its role in a sex extortion ring after combing through local government documents and information gathered by private detectives. Klotz later told journalist and author Burton Hersh what he had learned:
Roy Cohn was providing protection. There were a bunch of pedophiles involved. That’s where Cohn got his power from — blackmail.”
Perhaps the most damning confirmation of Cohn’s activities in Suite 233 comes from statements made by Cohn himself to former NYPD detective and ex-head of the department’s Human-Trafficking and Vice-Related Crimes Division, James Rothstein. Rothstein later told John DeCamp — a former Nebraska state senator who investigated a government-connected child sex ring based in Omaha — among other investigators, that Cohn had admitted to being part of a sexual blackmail operation targeting politicians with child prostitutes during a sit-down interview with the former detective.
Plaza Hotel Suite 223
Flags fly over the main entrance of the Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1982. Suzanne Vlamis | AP
Rothstein told DeCamp the following about Cohn:
Cohn’s job was to run the little boys. Say you had an admiral, a general, a congressman, who did not want to go along with the program. Cohn’s job was to set them up, then they would go along. Cohn told me that himself.”
Rothstein later told Paul David Collins, a former journalist turned researcher, that Cohn had also identified this sexual blackmail operation as being part of the anti-communist crusade of the time.
The fact that Cohn, per Rothstein’s recollection, stated that the child sex blackmail ring was part of the government-sponsored anti-communist crusade suggests that elements of the government, including Hoover’s FBI, may have been connected at a much broader level than Hoover’s own personal involvement, as the FBI closely coordinated with McCarthy and Cohn for much of the red scare.
It is also worth noting that among Hoover’s many “secret” blackmail files was a sizeable dossier on Senator McCarthy, the contents of which strongly suggested that the senator himself was interested in underage girls. According to journalist and author David Talbot, Hoover’s file on McCarthy was “filled with disturbing stories about McCarthy’s habit of drunkenly groping young girls’ breasts and buttocks. The stories were so widespread that they became ‘common knowledge’ in the capital, according to one FBI chronicler.”
Talbot, in his book The Devil’s Chessboard, also cites Walter Trohan, Washington Bureau Chief of the Chicago Tribune, as having personally witnessed McCarthy’s habit of molesting young women. “He just couldn’t keep his hands off young girls,” Trohan would later say. “Why the Communist opposition didn’t plant a minor on him and raise the cry of statutory rape, I don’t know.” Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that those “planting” minors on their political foes were McCarthy’s allies and close associates, not his enemies.
The question that necessarily arises from revelations regarding Cohn’s activities in Suite 233 is who else was Cohn “protecting” and servicing with underage prostitutes? One of them could very well have been one of Cohn’s close friends and clients, Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York, who was said to have been present at some of these parties Cohn hosted at the Plaza Hotel.
Spellman — one of the most powerful figures in the Catholic Church in North America, who was sometimes referred to as “America’s Pope” — was accused of not only condoning pedophilia in the Catholic church and ordaining known pedophiles including Cardinal Theodore “Uncle Teddy” McCarrick, but also engaging in it himself to such an extent that many New York area priests widely referred to him as “Mary.” Furthermore, J. Edgar Hoover was said to have a file detailing the cardinal’s sex life, suggesting Spellman’s involvement in the ring and pedophile protection racket in which Cohn and Hoover were personally involved.
Francis Spellman Roy Cohn
Cardinal Francis ‘Franny’ Spellman. Photo | Museum of the City of New York
People close to Cohn often remarked that he was frequently surrounded by groups of young boys, but seemed to think nothing of it. Similar off-handed comments about Epstein’s penchant for minors were made by those close to him prior to his arrest.
Controversial Republican political operative and “dirty trickster” Roger Stone — who, like Donald Trump, was also a protégé of Cohn — said the following about Cohn’s sex life during an interview with The New Yorker in 2008:
Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access.” (emphasis added)
Compare this quote from Stone to what Donald Trump, who was also close to Cohn, would later say about Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he was also closely associated:
I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” (emphasis added)
Though it is unknown how long the sex ring at the Plaza Hotel continued, and whether it continued after Cohn’s death from AIDS in 1986, it is worth noting that Donald Trump purchased the Plaza Hotel in 1988. It would later be reported and confirmed by then-attendees that Trump “used to host parties in suites at the Plaza Hotel when he owned it, where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men” and “illegal drugs and young women were passed around and used.”
Andy Lucchesi, a male model who had helped organize some of these Plaza Hotel parties for Trump, said the following when asked about the age of the women present: “A lot of girls, 14, look 24. That’s as juicy as I can get. I never asked how old they were; I just partook. I did partake in activities that would be controversial, too.”
The Roy Cohn Machine
Roy Cohn was only at the beginning of his career when he waded his way into the underground sexual blackmail ring apparently led by Lewis Rosenstiel. Indeed, when Cohn first met Hoover, he was only 23 years old. Over the next three decades or so, before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1986 at the age of 56, Cohn built a well-oiled machine, largely through his close friendships with some of the country’s most influential figures.
Among Cohn’s friends were top media personalities like Barbara Walters, former CIA directors, Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, media moguls Rupert Murdoch and Mort Zuckerman, numerous celebrities, prominent lawyers like Alan Dershowitz, top figures in the Catholic Church and leading Jewish organizations like B’nai B’rith and the World Jewish Congress. Many of the same names that surrounded Cohn until death in the late 1980s would later come to surround Jeffrey Epstein, with their names later appearing in Epstein’s now-infamous “little black book”.
Roy Cohn Reagan Murdoch
Reagan meets with Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, and Roy Cohn in the Oval Office in 1983. Photo | Reagan presidential library
While President Trump is clearly connected to both Epstein and Cohn, Cohn’s network also extends to former President Bill Clinton, whose friend and longtime political advisor, Richard “Dirty Dick” Morris, was Cohn’s cousin and close associate. Morris was also close to Clinton’s former communications director, George Stephanopoulos, who is also associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
Yet, these were only Cohn’s connections to respectable members of the establishment. He was also known for his deep connections to the mob and gained prominence largely for his ability to connect key figures in the criminal underworld to respected influential figures acceptable to the public sphere. Ultimately, as New York attorney John Klotz stated, Cohn’s most powerful tool was blackmail, which he used against friend and foe, gangster or public official alike. How much of that blackmail he acquired through his sexual blackmail operation will likely never be known.
As Part II of this exclusive investigation will reveal, Cohn and Epstein, and the sexual blackmail operations they ran share many things in common, including not only many of the same famous friends and patrons, but also connections to intelligence agencies and consortiums of mob-linked businessmen, the modern-day equivalents of Samuel Bronfman and Lewis Rosenstiel who have since rebranded as “philanthropists.”
Part II will also reveal that Cohn’s operation was known to have successors, as revealed by a series of scandals in the early 1990s that have since been swept under the rug. The significant amount of overlap between Epstein’s and Cohn’s covert activities in sexual blackmail and their ties to many of the same powerful individuals and circles of influence strongly suggest that Epstein was one of Cohn’s successors.
As will be shown in the final installment of this report, Epstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive and sophisticated operation that offers a frightening window into how deeply tied the U.S. government is to the modern-day equivalents of organized crime, making it a racket truly too big to fail.
Appalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the U.S. from the Prohibition Era right up through the Age of Trump.
by Whitney Webb
July 25th, 2019
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
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Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who now sits in jail on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors, has continued to draw media scrutiny in the weeks after his arrest on July 6. Part of the reason for this continued media interest is related to Epstein’s alleged relationship to the intelligence services and new information about the true extent of the sexual blackmail operation Epstein is believed to have run for decades.
As MintPress reported last week, Epstein was able to run this sordid operation for so long precisely because his was only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive operation that began in the 1950s and perhaps even earlier.
Starting first with mob-linked liquor baron Lewis Rosenstiel and later with Roy Cohn, Rosenstiel’s protege and future mentor to Donald Trump, Epstein’s is just one of the many sexual blackmail operations involving children that are all tied to the same network, which includes elements of organized crime, powerful Washington politicians, lobbyists and “fixers,” and clear links to intelligence as well as the FBI.
This report, Part II of this series titled “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big To Fail,” will delve into Cohn’s close ties to the Reagan administration, which was also closely tied to the same organized crime network led by the infamous mob figure Meyer Lansky, which was discussed in Part I. Of particular importance is the “Iran Contra” network, a group of Reagan officials and associates who played key roles in the Iran Contra scandal. Though it has remained relatively unknown for years, many key figures in that same network, and several fronts for the CIA that were involved in funneling money to the Central American Contra paramilitaries, were also trafficking minors for their sexual exploitation and use in sexual blackmail rings.
Several of these rings made headlines at one point or another over the years — from the “call boy ring” run by Washington lobbyist Craig Spence, to the Franklin child-sex and murder ring run by Republican operative Larry King, to the scandal that enveloped the Catholic charity Covenant House in the late 1980s.
Yet, as this report will show, all of these rings — and more — were connected to the same network that involved key figures linked to the Reagan White House and linked to Roy Cohn — revealing the true scope of the sordid sexual blackmail operations and sex rings that involved the trafficking of children within the U.S. and even in Central America for their exploitation by dangerous and powerful pedophiles in the United States.
Appalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the United States from the Prohibition Era right up to the present day and the Age of Trump, a fact made increasingly clear as more and more information comes to light in relation to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
“Roy could fix anyone in the city”
Since Donald Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015, the legacy of his mentor, Roy Cohn – as well as Cohn’s influence on his most famous protege — have begun to garner renewed media attention. Many of the profiles on Cohn following Trump’s rise have focused solely on certain shadowy aspects of Cohn’s history, particularly his association with major figures in New York organized crime, his corrupt dealings, and his eventual disbarment. Some of these portrayals even went so far as to label Cohn as politically impotent. While Cohn was known to deal with a sizable amount of sleaze in his career, such depictions of the man fail to note that he had created an influence machine of unrivaled power that included some of the most prominent people in media and politics as well as a cadre of celebrities.
Cohn was closely associated with numerous celebrities, famous politicians and political operatives. Many of his birthday parties over the years attracted such famous figures such as artist Andy Warhol, fashion designer Calvin Klein, and comedian Joey Adams, as well as notable political figures including former Mayor of New York Abraham Beame and then-Assemblyman from Brooklyn and future Senator Chuck Schumer, among others. In 1979 Margaret Trudeau, mother of current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, attended Cohn’s birthday party, where she famously toppled his custom birthday cake; and of course Donald Trump, who became Cohn’s protege in the mid-1970s, was a frequent fixture at social events held in Cohn’s honor.
The politicians, journalists and celebrities invited to Cohn’s exclusive parties were said to be those who “had open accounts in Cohn’s ‘favor bank,’” his nickname for his unofficial balance sheet of political favors and debts that was surely informed and influenced by his extensive involvement in sexual blackmail operations from the 1950s well into the 1980s.
Many of Cohn’s celebrity friendships were cultivated through his relationship with and frequent appearances at the famous and famously debaucherous New York nightclub Studio 54, which was described by Vanity Fair as “the giddy epicenter of 70s hedonism, a disco hothouse of beautiful people, endless cocaine, and every kind of sex.” Cohn was the long-time lawyer of the club’s owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager.
Steve Rubell Roy Cohn
Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell and Roy Cohn, left, talk to reporters outside U.S. District Court in Manhattan on, Nov. 2, 1979. Photo | AP
Among Cohn’s closest friends were Barbara Walters, to whom Cohn often referred as his “fiancee” in public, and whom he later introduced to the head of the U.S. Information Agency, Chad Wick, and other high rollers in the Reagan White House. Yet, Walters was just one of Cohn’s powerful friends in the media, a group that also included Abe Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times; William Safire, long-time New York Times columnist and New York Magazine contributor; and George Sokolsky of The New York Herald Tribune, NBC and ABC. Sokolsky was a particularly close friend of both Cohn and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, whose involvement in Cohn’s sexual blackmail operation is described in Part I of this investigative series. Sokolsky ran the American Jewish League Against Communism with Cohn for several years and the organization later named its Medal of Honor after Sokolsky.
Cohn was also the attorney and friend of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and, according to New York Magazine, “Whenever Roy wanted a story stopped, item put in, or story exploited, Roy called Murdoch;” and, after Murdoch bought the New York Post, Cohn “wielded the paper as his personal shiv.” According to the late journalist Robert Parry, the friendship between Murdoch and Cohn first began thanks to their mutual support for Israel.
Cohn also leaned on his life-long friend since high school, Si Newhouse Jr., to exert media influence. Newhouse oversaw the media empire that now includes Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, and numerous local newspapers throughout the United States, as well as major interests in cable television. New York Magazine also noted that “Cohn used his influence in the early ’80s to secure favors for himself and his Mob clients in Newhouse publications.” In addition to Newhouse, Cohn’s other high school pals, Generoso Pope Jr. and Richard Berlin, later became the owners of the National Enquirer and the Hearst Corporation, respectively. Cohn was also a close friend of another media mogul, Mort Zuckerman, who – along with Rupert Murdoch – would go on to befriend Jeffrey Epstein.
Cohn’s media confidants, like journalist William Buckley of The National Review and Firing Line, often attacked Cohn’s political enemies – particularly long-time Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau — in their columns, using Cohn as an anonymous source. Buckley, whom historian George Nash once called “the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure,” received the George Sokolsky medal alongside Cohn’s mob-linked client and “Supreme Commander” Lewis Rosenstiel from the Cohn-run American Jewish League Against Communism in 1966. Buckley later got a heavily discounted $65,000 loan to buy a luxury boat from a bank where Cohn held influence and whose president Cohn had hand picked, according to a 1969 article in LIFE magazine.
Buckley — along with Barbara Walters, Alan Dershowitz and Donald Trump — would later serve as character witnesses for Cohn during his 1986 disbarment hearings and all but Buckley would later draw controversy for their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.
With connections like this, it’s no wonder that Stanley Friedman — a law partner of Cohn, who was later imprisoned over a kickback and bribery scandal while serving as New York’s deputy mayor — told journalist Marie Brenner in 1980 that “Roy could fix anyone in the city.”
Politically ubiquitous and polygamous
Roy Cohn’s “favor bank” and his unique position as a liaison between the criminal underworld, the rich and famous, and top media influencers made him a force to be reckoned with. Yet, it was his political connections to leadership figures in both the Republican and Democratic parties and his close relationship to long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, among other figures, that made him and his dark secret “untouchable” for much of his life. Though most of his political influence was forged in the 1950s, Cohn became even more powerful with the rise of Ronald Reagan.
Even though he nominally maintained his affiliation with the Democratic Party throughout his life, Cohn was a well-known “fixer” for Republican candidates and this is clearly seen in his outsized roles during the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan. It was during the latter that Cohn would meet another of his proteges, Roger Stone, whom he infamously instructed to leave a hefty bribe tucked in a suitcase at the doorstep of the Liberal Party’s headquarters during the 1980 campaign. During this campaign, Cohn would also meet Paul Manafort — an associate of Stone and later Trump’s 2016 campaign manager — and introduce both to Donald Trump.
Cohn’s law partner, Tom Bolan, was also an influential force in the Reagan campaign and later chaired Reagan’s transition team in 1980. Reagan then named Bolan, whom he considered a friend, a director of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the government’s development finance institution, and he was also the New York finance co-chairman in the Reagan campaign in both 1980 and 1984. Bolan was also close to others in Cohn’s circle, such as William F. Buckley Jr., Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.
Furthermore, Bolan was instrumental in securing federal judgeships for several individuals who would later become influential, including future FBI Director Louis Freeh. Cohn was also able to get friends of clients appointed as federal judges, including Donald Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry. After Barry was appointed as a federal judge, Trump called Cohn to thank him for pulling strings on his sister’s behalf.
Though Cohn was not given a public position in the Reagan administration, he was not merely a “dirty trickster” who worked in the shadows during the Reagan campaigns. In fact, he worked closely with some of the more visible faces of the campaign, including the then-communications director for Reagan’s 1980 campaign and later CIA director, William Casey. According to Christine Seymour — Cohn’s long-time switchboard operator from the late 1960s up until his death in 1986, who listened in on his calls — Casey and Cohn were close friends and, during the 1980 campaign, Casey “called Roy almost daily.”
Seymour also noted that one of Cohn’s other most frequent phone pals and closest friends was Nancy Reagan and she was also one of his clients. Reagan, whose influence over her husband was well-known, was so close to Cohn that it was largely his death from AIDS that led her to “encourage her husband to seek more funding for AIDS research.”
Prior to Cohn’s death, Nancy and her husband Ronald secured his spot in an exclusive experimental AIDS treatment program, despite the Reagan administration’s well-documented “non-response” to the AIDS crisis of the era. Ronald Reagan was also a friend of Cohn’s and, according to late journalist Robert Parry, “lavished favors on Cohn, including invitations to White House events, personal thank-you notes and friendly birthday wishes” over the course of his presidency.
Given that Reagan heavily courted the evangelical right and promoted “family values” as president, the close ties between not only himself, but his inner circle, with Cohn may seem odd. However, Reagan, like Cohn, had deep ties to the same organized-crime factions that were among Cohn’s clients and affiliates of the same Mafia figures close to Cohn’s own mentor, Lewis Rosenstiel (see Part I).
Not unlike Cohn, Reagan’s own mentor, Lew Wasserman, had close ties to the mob. Wasserman, the long-time president of MCA and the well-known Hollywood mogul, is known for not only making Reagan’s film and television career, but also supporting his successful push to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, which later launched Reagan’s political career. In addition, MCA was a major financier of Reagan’s successful gubernatorial bid in 1966 and, not long after Reagan became president, his administration controversially shut down a massive Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into MCA’s ties to organized crime.
Ronald Reagan Lew Wasserman
Ronald Reagan, center, with A.C. Lyles and Lew Wasserman, right. Photo | A.C. Lyles
According to Shawn Swords, a documentary filmmaker who explored Reagan’s ties to MCA in Wages of Spin II: Bring Down That Wall:
Ronald Reagan was an opportunist. His whole career was guided by MCA — by Wasserman and [MCA founder] Jules Stein, who bragged that Reagan was malleable, that they could do what they wanted with him…That thing about Reagan being tough on [organized] crime — that’s a fallacy.”
Swords’ characterization of this relationship is supported by an unnamed Hollywood source cited in a declassified DOJ document, who called Reagan “a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything.”
What elements of organized crime were connected to Wasserman? As a young man, Lew Wasserman joined the Mayfield Road Gang, which was run by Moe Dalitz, a close friend of Meyer Lansky who, per the FBI, was a powerful figure in Lansky’s criminal enterprise, second only to Lansky himself among members of the Jewish mob.
Lew Wasserman would later marry Edith Beckerman, whose father was Dalitz’s lawyer. Wasserman’s closest friend and lawyer, Sidney Korshak, also had close ties to Dalitz and once partnered with Lansky in the Acapulco Towers Hotel. Notably, the magazine New West stated in 1976 that Korshak was the “logical successor to Meyer Lansky.” Korshak, as a lawyer, fit a niche similar to Roy Cohn and gained a reputation as the bridge between organized crime and respectable society.
In addition, the DOJ probe into MCA that the Reagan administration quashed was reportedly spurred after the Justice Department learned that an influential member of the Gambino crime family, Salvatore Pisello, was doing business with the massive entertainment company. At that time, the boss of the Gambino crime family, Paul Castellano, was a client of Roy Cohn.
Cohn, Murdoch and the Contras
Though Cohn’s influence in the Reagan administration and his friendship with the Reagan family and their inner circle has been acknowledged, less well-known is how Cohn aided the CIA’s covert propaganda efforts that were part of the larger scandal known as Iran-Contra.
Cohn, whose influence over the press has already been detailed, forged close ties with the director of the U.S. Information Agency, Chad Wick, even hosting a luncheon in Wick’s honor that was widely attended by influential figures in the conservative press, as well as senators and representatives. Soon after, then-CIA Director and Cohn friend William Casey was spearheading an extensive PR campaign aimed at shoring up public support for Reagan’s Latin American policies, including support of the Contra paramilitaries.
This domestic propaganda effort was technically illegal and required that the CIA outsource the job to the private sector to minimize the risk of fall-out. As Robert Parry reported in 2015, Wick took the lead in obtaining private funding for the effort and, just a few days after Wick promised to find private support, Cohn brought his close friend, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, to the White House.
Roy Cohn Reagan Murdoch
Reagan meets with Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, and Roy Cohn in the Oval Office in 1983. Photo | Reagan presidential library
Parry later noted that, after this meeting, “documents released during the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 and later from the Reagan Library indicate that Murdoch was soon viewed as a source for the private funding” for the propaganda campaign.
After that initial meeting, Murdoch became the top media ally of this Casey-directed propaganda effort, and also became increasingly close to the Reagan White House. Murdoch, as a consequence, benefited greatly from Reagan’s policies and his friendship with the administration, which allowed Murdoch to increase his U.S. media holdings and to create the Fox Broadcasting Corporation in 1987.
“The man in the black tuxedo”
Roy Cohn was not the only one close to the Reagan administration who was simultaneously running sexual blackmail operations that abused and exploited children. In fact, there were several figures, all of whom shared direct connections to CIA Director William Casey and other close friends and confidants of Cohn.
One of these individuals was Robert Keith Gray, the former chairman and CEO of the powerful Washington-based public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, which 60 Minutes once called “an unelected shadow government” due to its influence in the capitol. According to the Washington Post, Gray himself was “one of the most sought-after lobbyists in Washington” and a Post reporter once called him “a kind of legend in this town, …the man in the black tuxedo with snow-white hair and a smile like a diamond.”
Yet, Gray was much more than a powerful PR executive.
Gray, who had previously been a close adviser to both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, was a very successful Republican fundraiser who “collects money in six-figure globs,” according to a 1974 report in the Washingtonian. He first came into close contact with what would become Ronald Reagan’s inner circle during Reagan’s unsuccessful 1976 presidential campaign and later as deputy director of communications during Reagan’s campaign in 1980. The latter position would see him work directly under William Casey, who later became CIA director.
Gray would go on to co-chair Reagan’s Inauguration Committee and afterwards would return to the PR business, taking on several clients including Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and hedge fund manager Marc Rich. Both Khashoggi and Rich will be discussed more in detail in Part III of this report — particularly Rich, who was an asset of Israeli intelligence outfit Mossad, and whose later criminal pardon by Bill Clinton was largely orchestrated by members of the Mega Group like Michael Steinhardt and Israeli politicians like Ehud Barak.
The connection between Gray and Casey is particulary telling, as it was later revealed by former Nebraska state senator-turned-investigator John DeCamp that Gray was a specialist in homosexual blackmail operations for the CIA and was reported to have collaborated with Roy Cohn in those activities. Cohn and Gray were likely to have known each other well, as during Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign Casey — then Gray’s boss — was calling Roy Cohn “every day,” according to Cohn’s former switchboard operator Christine Seymour.
Gray was a known associate of CIA agent and Naval Intelligence officer Edwin Wilson, having served in the 1970s on the board of Consultants International, an organization that Wilson had founded and that the CIA used as a front company. Though Gray attempted to distance himself from Wilson after the latter was caught illegally selling weapons to Libya in 1983, a Navy review of Wilson’s intelligence career, unearthed by journalist Peter Maas, stated that Gray described Wilson as a man of “unqualified trust” and that Gray and Wilson had been in professional contact “two or three times a month” as early as 1963.
Though Wilson’s main specialty was front companies used to covertly ship and smuggle goods on behalf of U.S. intelligence, he also ran sexual blackmail operations for the CIA, particularly around the time of the Watergate scandal, according to his former partner and fellow agent at the CIA, Frank Terpil.
Terpil later told author and investigative journalist Jim Hougan:
Historically, one of Wilson’s Agency jobs was to subvert members of both houses [of Congress] by any means necessary…. Certain people could be easily coerced by living out their sexual fantasy in the flesh…. A remembrance of these occasions [was] permanently recorded via selected cameras…. The technicians in charge of filming … [were] TSD [Technical Services Division of the CIA]. The unwitting porno stars advanced in their political careers, some of [whom] may still be in office.”
According to Terpil, Wilson ran his operation out of the George Town Club, owned by lobbyist and Korean intelligence asset Tongsun Park. According to the Washington Post, Park set up the club on behalf of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency “as a primary means in an illegal effort to influence U.S. politicians and officials.” The president of the George Town Club at the time of Wilson’s alleged activities at the site was Robert Keith Gray.
DeCamp later reported that Wilson’s activities were a spin-off of the same sexual blackmail operation in which Cohn became involved during the McCarthy era with Lewis Rosenstiel and J. Edgar Hoover.
Father Ritter and his favored youths
The operation allegedly ran by Gray and Wilson was not the only sexual blackmail operation connected to Cohn’s network or to influential American politicians of the era. Another pedophile network that was connected to a close associate of former President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s was run as an affiliate of the Catholic charity Covenant House, which was founded and run by Father Bruce Ritter.
In 1968, Ritter asked his superior — Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York — for permission to take homeless teenagers, boys and girls, into his home in Manhattan. As was noted in Part I of this series, Spellman was accused of pedophilia and ordained known pedophiles while serving as the highest-ranking Catholic priest in the United States. Spellman was also a close associate, client and friend of Roy Cohn, as well as of his law partner Tom Bolan, and Spellman was alleged to have been seen at least one of Cohn’s “blackmail parties.” In addition, Spellman’s nephew, Ned Spellman, worked for Roy Cohn, according to LIFE magazine.
Ritter, like Spellman and other priests who served under Spellman, was eventually accused of having sexual relationships with many of the underaged boys he had taken in, and of spending Covenant House funds on lavish gifts and payments to the vulnerable teenagers he exploited.
One of Ritter’s victims, Darryl Bassile, wrote an open letter to him a year after the priest’s preying on teenage boys was exposed by the press: “You were wrong for inflicting your desires on a 14-year-old . . . I know that someday you will stand before the one who judges all of us and at that time there will be no more denial, just the truth.”
Notably, when Ritter’s activities at Covenant House were exposed in 1989 by the New York Post, Charles M. Sennott, the Post reporter who wrote the story, would later state that “the secular powers more than the archdiocese or the Franciscans protected him [Ritter].” Sennott’s report was attacked viciously by columnists in other New York media outlets, powerful politicians including then-Governor of New York Mario Cuomo, as well as by Cardinal Spellman’s successor, Cardinal John O’Connor.
The likely reason these “secular powers” came to the aid of the embattled Ritter, who was never charged for having sexual relationships with minors and was merely forced to resign from his post, is that Covenant House and Ritter himself were deeply tied to Robert Macauley, Bush Sr.’s roommate at Yale and a long-time friend of the Bush family. Macauley was described by the New York Times as “instrumental” to Covenant House fundraising after he joined its board in 1985 and brought on several “other wealthy or well-connected people,” including former government officials and investment bankers.
George Bush Convent House
George Bush and first lady Barbara meet residents at New York’s Convent House, June 22, 1989. Father Bruce Ritter is seated in the background. Rick Bowmen | AP
Macauley’s organization, the AmeriCares Foundation, which was later accused of funneling money to the Contras in Central America, was one of the main sources of funding of Covenant House. One of the members of AmeriCares advisory board was William E. Simon, former U.S. secretary of the treasury under the Nixon and Ford administrations, who also ran the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, which sent aid to the Contras.
AmeriCares was also known to work directly with U.S. intelligence. As the Hartford Courant noted in 1991: “Knowledgeable former federal officials, many with backgrounds in intelligence work, help AmeriCares maneuver in delicate international political environments.”
Furthermore, Ritter was known to have visited Macauley’s Connecticut estate and served as Vice President of AmeriCares until he was forced to resign from Covenant House. Notably, George H.W. Bush’s brother, Prescott, was also on the AmeriCares advisory board. After George H.W. Bush died last year, AmeriCares stated that he had been “instrumental in founding the health-focused relief and development organization.”
Years before Ritter was outed as a pedophile who preyed on the disadvantaged and vulnerable teenagers who sought refuge at his charity, Covenant House was praised heavily by President Ronald Reagan, even earning a mention in his 1984 State of the Union address, which called Ritter one of the country’s “unsung heroes.” From 1985 to 1989, Covenant House’s operating budget grew from $27 million to $90 million and its board came to include powerful individuals including top executives at IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank and Bear Stearns.
It was during this time that Covenant House grew into an international organization, opening branches in several countries, including Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in Central America. Its first branch in Central America was opened in Guatemala and was headed by Roberto Alejos Arzu, a CIA asset whose plantation was used to train the troops used in the CIA’s failed “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba. Alejos Arzu was also an associate of the former U.S.-backed dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, and a member of the Knights of Malta, a Catholic order to which former CIA Director William Casey and Roy Cohn’s law partner Tom Bolan also belonged. Alejos Arzu also worked for AmeriCares and was tied to several Central American paramilitary groups.
Intelligence community sources cited by DeCamp assert that the Alejos Arzu-led branch of Covenant House procured children for a pedophile ring based in the United States. Years later, Mi Casa, another U.S.-run charity in Guatemala that George H.W. Bush had personally toured with his wife Barbara in 1994, was accused of rampant pedophilia and child abuse.
The downfall of “Washington’s Jay Gatsby”
After having left his job as an ABC News correspondent in the 1980s, Craig Spence found success as a prominent conservative Washington lobbyist. Spence would soon find his fortunes shift dramatically when, in June 1989, it was revealed that he had been pimping out children to the power elite in the nation’s capital throughout the 1980s in apartments that were bugged with video and audio recording equipment. Much like Jeffrey Epstein, who ran a similar operation, Spence was often likened to Jay Gatsby, the mysterious, wealthy figure from the well-known Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby.
A 1982 New York Times article written about Spence said that his “personal phone book and party guest lists constitute a ‘Who’s Who’ in Congress, Government and journalism” and stated that Spence was “hired by his clients as much for whom he knows as what he knows.” Spence was also known to throw lavish parties, which the Times described as “glitter[ed] with notables, from ambassadors to television stars, from senators to senior State Department officials.” Roy Cohn, William Casey and Roy Cohn’s journalist friend William Safire were just some of the other attendees at Spence’s festivities.
“According to Mr. Spence,” the Times article continues, “Richard Nixon is a friend. So is [former Attorney General under Nixon] John Mitchell. [CBS journalist] Eric Sevareid is termed ‘an old, dear friend.’ Senator John Glenn is ‘a good friend’ and Peter Ustinov [British actor and journalist] is ‘an old, old friend.’” Notably, Ustinov wrote for The European newspaper soon after it was founded in 1990 by Robert Maxwell, the father of Epstein’s alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell and a known Mossad agent.
It was revealed just seven years after the Times’ published its doting profile of Spence that his “glittery parties for key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, media stars and top military officers” had been bugged in order “to compromise guests.” According to the explosive report published by the Washington Times, Spence was linked to a “homosexual prostuition ring” whose clients included “government officials, locally based U.S. military officers, businessmen, lawyers, bankers, congressional aides, media representatives and other professionals.” Spence also offered cocaine to his guests as another means of acquiring blackmail.
According to the report, Spence’s home “was bugged and had a secret two-way mirror, and … he attempted to ensnare visitors into compromising sexual encounters that he could then use as leverage.” One man who spoke to the Washington Times said that Spence sent a limousine to his home, which took him to a party where “several young men tried to become friendly with him.” According to DeCamp, Spence was known to offer young children for sex to attendees at his blackmail parties, along with illegal drugs like cocaine.
Several other sources, including a Reagan White House official and an Air Force sergeant who had attended Spence-hosted parties, confirmed that Spence’s house was filled with recording equipment, which he regularly used to spy on and record guests, and his house also included a two-way mirror that he used for eavesdropping.
The report also documented Spence’s connections to U.S. intelligence, particularly the CIA. According to the Washington Times report, Spence “often boasted that he was working for the CIA and on one occasion said he was going to disappear for awhile ‘because he had an important CIA assignment.’” He was also quite paranoid about his alleged work for the agency, as he expressed concern “that the CIA might ‘doublecross him’ and kill him instead and then make it look like a suicide.” Not long after the Washington Times report on his activities was published, Spence was found dead in the Boston Ritz Carlton and his death was quickly ruled a suicide.
The Washington Times report also offers a clue as to what Spence may have done for the CIA, as it cited sources that had claimed that Spence had spoken of smuggling cocaine into the U.S. from El Salvador, an operation that he claimed had involved U.S. military personnel. Given the timing of these comments from Spence, Spence’s powerful connections, and the CIA’s involvement in the exchange of cocaine for weapons in the Iran Contra scandal, his comments may have been much more than just boasts intended to impress his party guests.
One of the most critical parts of the scandal surrounding Spence, however, was the fact that he had been able to enter the White House late at night during the George H.W. Bush administration with young men whom the Washington Times described as “call boys.”
Spence later stated that his contacts within the White House, which allowed him and his “call boys” access, were “top level” officials and he specifically singled out George H.W. Bush’s then-National Security Advisor Donald Gregg. Gregg had worked at the CIA since 1951 before he resigned in 1982 to become National Security Advisor to Bush, who was then vice president. Prior to resigning from his post at the CIA, Gregg had worked directly under William Casey and, in the late 1970s, alongside a young William Barr in stonewalling the congressional Pike Committee and Church Committee, which investigated the CIA beginning in 1975. Among the things that they were tasked with investigating were the CIA’s “love traps,” or sexual blackmail operations used to lure foreign diplomats to bugged apartments, complete with recording equipment and two-way mirrors.
Barr would later become Bush’s Attorney General, rising to that post yet again under Trump. Furthermore, Barr’s father worked for the precursor to the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and recruited a young Jeffrey Epstein, then a high school drop-out, to teach at the elite Dalton School, from which Epstein was later fired. A year prior to hiring Epstein, Donald Barr published a science fiction fantasy novel about sex slavery. Notably, the same year Donald Barr hired Epstein, his son was working for the CIA. Bill Barr has refused calls to recuse himself from the Epstein case, even though he worked at the same law firm that has represented Epstein in the past.
Donald Gregg is also connected to Roy Cohn’s “influence machine” through his daughter’s marriage to Christopher Buckley, the son of conservative journalist William Buckley, close confidant and friend of both Roy Cohn and Cohn’s law partner Tom Bolan.
The Washington Times reports on Spence’s child sex ring also reveal his close ties to none other than the ubiquitous Roy Cohn. One of the Times’ sources for its first story on the scandal alleged that he had attended a birthday party for Roy Cohn that Spence had hosted at his home and that CIA Director William Casey was also in attendance. Spence was also said in the report to often brag about his social companions and regularly mentioned Cohn and claimed to have hosted Cohn at his house on occasions other than the aforementioned birthday party.
“Bodies by God”
The revelation of Craig Spence’s “call boy ring” soon led to the discovery of the infamous Franklin child sex abuse and ritual murder scandal. That sordid operation was run out of Omaha, Nebraska by Larry King, a prominent local Republican activist and lobbyist who ran the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union until it was shut down by federal authorities.
Buried in a May 1989 article in the Omaha World Herald’s probe into King’s Credit Union and sex ring, is a telling revelation: “In the 61/2 months since federal authorities closed Franklin, rumors have persisted that money from the credit union somehow found its way to the Nicaraguan contra rebels.”
The possibility that King’s fraudulent credit union was covertly funding the Contras was supported by subsequent reporting by the Houston Post’s Pete Brewton, who discovered that the CIA, in conjunction with organized crime, had secretly borrowed money from various savings and loans (S&L) institutions to fund covert operations. One of those S&Ls had Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush’s son, on its board and it had done business with King’s organization.
Another link between King and the Iran Contra team is the fact that King had co-founded and subsequently donated over $25,000 to an organization affiliated with the Reagan administration, Citizens for America, which sponsored speaking trips for Lt. Col. Oliver North and Contra leaders. The director of Citizens for America at the time was David Carmen, who simultaneously ran a public relations firm with the former head of covert operations at the Casey-led CIA, his father Gerald, who had also been appointed by Reagan to head the General Services Administration and to a subsequent ambassadorship.
One of the investigative journalists who researched the Craig Spence ring later told DeCamp that Spence’s ring was connected to King:
The way we discovered Larry King and his Nebraska-based call boy ring, was by looking through the credit card chits of Spence’s ring, where we found King’s name.”
It was later revealed that King and Spence were essentially business partners as their child trafficking rings were operated under a larger group that was nicknamed “Bodies by God.”
Exactly how many groups operated under this umbrella group, “Bodies by God,” is unknown. Yet, what is known is that the rings run by both King and Spence were connected to each other and both were also connected to prominent officials in the Reagan and subsequent George H.W. Bush administrations, including officials with ties to the CIA and Roy Cohn and his network.
Indeed Spence, just months before his alleged suicide in the Boston Ritz Carlton, had hinted to Washington Times reporters Michael Hedges and Jerry Seper, who had originally broken the story, that they had merely scratched the surface of something much darker:
All this stuff you’ve uncovered [involving call boys, bribery and the White House tours], to be honest with you, is insignificant compared to other things I’ve done. But I’m not going to tell you those things, and somehow the world will carry on.”
It is also worth noting the role of the FBI in all of this, particularly in the Franklin child sex abuse scandal. Indeed, Larry King’s child sex abuse ring was quickly and aggressively covered up by the FBI, which used a variety of under-handed tactics to bury the reality of King’s sordid operation. Here, it is important to recall the key role former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover played in similar sexual blackmail operations that abused children (See Part I) and the close relationship between Hoover, Roy Cohn and Lewis Rosenstiel, who later employed Hoover’s former right-hand man at the FBI, Louis Nichols.
Years later, documents released by the FBI would show that Epstein became an FBI informant in 2008, when Robert Mueller was the Bureau’s director, in exchange for immunity from then-pending federal charges, a deal that fell through with Epstein’s recent arrest on new federal charges. In addition, former FBI Director Louis Freeh would be hired by Alan Dershowitz, who is accused of raping girls at Epstein’s homes and was once a character witness for Roy Cohn, to intimidate Epstein’s victims. As previously mentioned, Freeh’s past appointment as a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York was orchestrated by Cohn’s law partner Tom Bolan.
Thus, the FBI’s cover-up of the Franklin case is just one example of the Bureau’s long-standing practice of protecting these pedophile rings when they involve members of the American political elite and provide the Bureau with a steady supply of blackmail. It also makes it worth questioning the impartiality of one of the main prosecutors in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Maurene Comey, who is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.
The rot at the top
While there were several sexual trafficking operations connected to both Roy Cohn and the halls of power under the Reagan administration, in a matter of months after Cohn’s death it appears that another individual became a central figure in the powerful network that Cohn had cultivated.
That individual, Jeffrey Epstein, would be recruited, after his firing from the Dalton School, by Alan “Ace” Greenberg, a close friend of Cohn, to work at Bear Stearns. After leaving Bear Stearns and working as an alleged financial “bounty hunter” for clients that are said to have included the Iran-Contra-linked arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Epstein would come into contact with Leslie Wexner, a billionaire close to the Meyer Lansky-linked Bronfman family, who himself was tied to members of organized crime syndicates once represented by Cohn.
The same year that Wexner would begin his decades-long association with Epstein, another Cohn friend with ties to the Reagan White House and the Trump family, Ronald Lauder, would provide Epstein with an Austrian passport containing Epstein’s picture but a false name.
Lauder, Wexner and the Bronfmans are members of an elite organization known as the Mega Group, which also includes other Meyer Lansky-connected “philanthropists” like hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt. While Epstein shares considerable overlap with the network described in this report and Part I of this series, he is also deeply connected to the Mega Group as well as its associates, including Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell.
Part III of this series will focus on the Mega Group and its ties to the network that has been described in Parts I and II. In addition, the role of the state of Israel, the Mossad, and several global pro-Israel lobby organizations will also be discussed in relation to this network of sexual blackmail operations and Jeffrey Epstein.
It is here that the full breadth of the Epstein scandal comes into view. It is a criminal and unconscionable blackmail operation that has been run by influential figures, hidden in plain sight, for over half a century, exploiting and destroying the lives of untold numbers of children in the process. Over the years, it has grown many branches and spread well beyond the United States, as seen by the activity of Covenant House in Latin America and Epstein’s own international effort to recruit more girls to be abused and exploited.
All of this has taken place with the full knowledge and blessing of top figures in the world of “philanthropy” and in the U.S. government and intelligence communities, with great influence over several presidential administrations, particularly since the rise of Ronald Reagan and continuing through to Donald Trump.
The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
As billionaire pedophile and alleged sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein sits in prison, reports have continued to surface about his reported links to intelligence, his financial ties to several companies and “charitable” foundations, and his friendships with the rich and powerful as well as top politicians.
While Part I and Part II of this series, “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” have focused on the widespread nature of sexual blackmail operations in recent American history and their ties to the heights of American political power and the U.S. intelligence community, one key aspect of Epstein’s own sex-trafficking and blackmail operation that warrants examination is Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and his ties to the “informal” pro-Israel philanthropist faction known as “the Mega Group.”
The Mega Group’s role in the Epstein case has garnered some attention, as Epstein’s main financial patron for decades, billionaire Leslie Wexner, was a co-founder of the group that unites several well-known businessmen with a penchant for pro-Israel and ethno-philanthropy (i.e., philanthropy benefiting a single ethnic or ethno-religious group). However, as this report will show, another uniting factor among Mega Group members is deep ties to organized crime, specifically the organized crime network discussed in Part I of this series, which was largely led by notorious American mobster Meyer Lansky.
By virtue of the role of many Mega Group members as major political donors in both the U.S. and Israel, several of its most notable members have close ties to the governments of both countries as well as their intelligence communities. As this report and a subsequent report will show, the Mega Group also had close ties to two businessmen who worked for Israel’s Mossad — Robert Maxwell and Marc Rich — as well as to top Israeli politicians, including past and present prime ministers with deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community.
One of those businessmen working for the Mossad, Robert Maxwell, will be discussed at length in this report. Maxwell, who was a business partner of Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronfman, aided the successful Mossad plot to plant a trapdoor in U.S.-created software that was then sold to governments and companies throughout the world. That plot’s success was largely due to the role of a close associate of then-President Ronald Reagan and an American politician close to Maxwell, who later helped aid Reagan in the cover-up of the Iran Contra scandal.
Years later, Maxwell’s daughter — Ghislaine Maxwell — would join Jeffrey Epstein’s “inner circle” at the same time Epstein was bankrolling a similar software program now being marketed for critical electronic infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad. That company has deep and troubling connections to Israeli military intelligence, associates of the Trump administration, and the Mega Group.
Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intelligence and has well-documented ties to influential Israeli politicians and the Mega Group. Yet, those entities are not isolated in and of themselves, as many also connect to the organized crime network and powerful alleged pedophiles discussed in previous installments of this series.
Perhaps the best illustration of how the connections between many of these players often meld together can be seen in Ronald Lauder: a Mega Group member, former member of the Reagan administration, long-time donor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s Likud Party, as well as a long-time friend of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn.
From cosmetics heir to political player
One often overlooked yet famous client and friend of Roy Cohn is the billionaire heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune, Ronald Lauder. Lauder is often described in the press as a “leading Jewish philanthropist” and is the president of the World Jewish Congress, yet his many media profiles tend to leave out his highly political past.
In a statement given by Lauder to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in 2018, the cosmetics heir noted that he has known Trump for over 50 years, going back at least to the early 1970s. According to Lauder, his relationship with Trump began when Trump was a student at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which Lauder also attended.
Donald Trump Ronald Lauder
President-elect Trump walks with Ronald Lauder after meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Dec. 28, 2016, in Palm Beach, Fla. Evan Vucci | AP
Though the exact nature of their early friendship is unclear, it is evident that they shared many of the same connections, including to the man who would later count them both as his clients, Roy Cohn. While much has been said of the ties between Cohn and Trump, Cohn was particularly close to Lauder’s mother, Estee Lauder (born Josephine Mentzer). Estee was even counted among Cohn’s most high-profile friends in his New York Times obituary.
A small window into the Lauder-Cohn relationship surfaced briefly in a 2016 article in Politico about a 1981 dinner party held at Cohn’s weekend home in Greenwich, Connecticut. The party was attended by Ronald Lauder’s parents, Estee and Joe, as well as Trump and his then-wife Ivana, who had a weekend home just two miles away. That party was held soon after Cohn had helped Reagan secure the presidency and had reached the height of his political influence. At the party, Cohn offered toasts to Reagan and to then-Senator for New York Alfonse D’Amato, who would later urge Ronald Lauder to run for political office.
Two years later, in 1983, Ronald Lauder — whose only professional experience at that point was working for his parent’s cosmetics company — was appointed to serve as United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs. Soon after his appointment, he served on the Dinner Tribute Committee for a dinner hosted by the Jewish fraternal and strongly pro-Israel organization B’nai B’rith, the parent organization of the controversial Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in Roy Cohn’s honor. Cohn’s influential father, Albert Cohn, was the long-time president of B’nai B’rith’s powerful New England-New York chapter and Roy Cohn himself was a member of B’nai B’rith’s Banking and Finance Lodge.
The dinner specifically sought to honor Cohn for his pro-Israel advocacy and his efforts to “fortify” Israel’s economy, and its honorary chairmen included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump and then-head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, all of whom are connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
During his time as deputy assistant secretary of defense, Lauder was also very active in Israeli politics and had already become an ally of the then-Israeli representative to the United Nations and future prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Lauder would go on to be one of the most important individuals in Netanyahu’s rise to power, particularly during his upset victory in 1996, and a major financier of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party.
In 1986, the year that Roy Cohn died, Lauder left his post at the Pentagon and became the U.S. ambassador to Austria, where his tenure was shaped by his confrontations with the then-Austrian president and former Nazi collaborator, Kurt Waldheim. Lauder’s interest in Austrian politics has continued well into recent years, culminating in accusations that he sought to manipulate Austrian elections in 2012.
After leaving his ambassadorship, Lauder founded the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation in 1987 and later went on to run for Mayor of New York against Rudy Giuliani in 1989. Lauder was encouraged to run by then-Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who had close ties to Roy Cohn and his long-time law partner Tom Bolan, who was D’Amato’s adviser. At the aforementioned 1983 B’nai B’rith dinner honoring Cohn, D’Amato was the featured speaker.
The likely reason was that Giuliani, though once an ally of the “Roy Cohn machine,” was at the time deeply disliked by the late Cohn’s associates for prosecuting Cohn’s former law partner, Stanley Friedman, for racketeering, conspiracy and other charges. Giuliani also had a history of bitter disagreements with D’Amato. Lauder’s primary campaign, though unsuccessful, was noted for its viciousness and its cost, as it burned through more than $13 million.
A few years later, in the early 1990s, Lauder would join a newly formed group that has long evaded scrutiny from the media but has recently become of interest in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal: the Mega Group.
Lauder, Epstein and the mysterious Austrian passport
Before getting to the Mega Group, it is worth noting one particular act apparently undertaken by Lauder while he was U.S. ambassador to Austria that has recently come to light in relation to the arrest in early July of Jeffrey Epstein, a finding first reported by journalist Edward Szall. When police recently discovered an Austrian passport with Epstein’s picture and a fake name after raiding his Manhattan residence, the source and purpose of the passport came under media scrutiny.
According to the Associated Press, Epstein’s defense lawyers specifically argued that “a friend gave it to him [Epstein] in the 1980s after some Jewish-Americans were informally advised to carry identification bearing a non-Jewish name when traveling internationally during a period when hijackings were more common.” This claim appears to be related to concerns that followed the hijacking of Air France Flight 139 in 1976 when Israeli and Jewish hostages were separated from other hostages based largely on the passports in their possession.
Given that Epstein was unable to meet the conventional qualifications for an Austrian passport — including long-term residency in Austria (the passport lists him as a resident of Saudi Arabia) and fluency in German — it appears that the only way to have acquired an Austrian passport was by unconventional means, meaning assistance from a well-connected Austrian official or foreign diplomat with clout in Austria.
Epstein Wexler Lauder
Ronald Lauder, right, and Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima pose with students from the Lauder Chabad School in Vienna, Austria in 1999. Martin Gnedt | AP
Lauder, then-ambassador to Austria for the Reagan administration, would have been well-positioned to acquire such a passport, particularly for the reason cited by Epstein’s attorneys that Jewish-Americans could be targeted during travel, and in light of Lauder’s very public concerns over threats Jews face from certain terror groups. Furthermore, the passport had been issued in 1987, when Lauder was still serving as an ambassador.
In addition, Lauder was well-connected to Epstein’s former patron — former head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, who had hired Epstein in the late 1970s immediately after the latter was fired from the Dalton School — and Donald Trump, another friend of Lauder and Greenberg who began his friendship with Epstein in 1987, the same year the fake Austrian passport was issued. In 1987, Epstein also began his relationship with his principal financier, Leslie Wexner, who is also closely associated with Lauder (though some sources claim that Epstein and Wexner first met in 1985 but that their strong business relationship was not established until 1987).
Though Epstein’s defense attorney declined to reveal the identity of the “friend” who provided him with the fake Austrian passport, Lauder was both well-positioned to acquire it in Austria and also deeply connected to the Mega Group, which was co-founded by Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner and to which Epstein has many connections. These connections to both the Austrian government and to Epstein’s mentor make Lauder the most likely person to have acquired the document on Epstein’s behalf.
Furthermore, Epstein and the Mega Group’s ties to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, also suggest Lauder was involved in procuring the passport, in light of his close ties to the Israeli government and the fact that Mossad has a history of using ambassadors abroad to procure false, foreign passports for its operatives.
Lauder himself has been alleged to have ties to Mossad, as he is a long-time funder of IDC Herzliya, an Israeli university closely associated with Mossad and their recruiters as well as Israeli military intelligence. Lauder even founded IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.
Furthermore, Lauder co-founded the Eastern European broadcasting network CETV with Mark Palmer, a former U.S. diplomat, Kissinger aide and Reagan speechwriter. Palmer is better known for co-founding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization often described as an accessory to U.S. intelligence, and one whose first president confessed to the Washington Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Standard noted that Epstein once claimed that during the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein later backed away from that assertion.
The origins of the Mega Group Mafia
The Mega Group — a secretive group of billionaires to which Lauder belongs — was formed in 1991 by Charles Bronfman and Leslie Wexner, the latter of whom has received considerable media scrutiny following the July arrest of his former protege Jeffrey Epstein. Media profiles of the group paint it as “a loosely organized club of 20 of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential Jewish businessmen” focused on “philanthropy and Jewishness,” with membership dues upwards of $30,000 per year. Yet several of its most prominent members have ties to organized crime.
Mega Group members founded and/or are closely associated with some of the most well-known pro-Israel organizations. For instance, members Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt formed Birthright Taglit with the backing of then- and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Steinhardt, an atheist, has stated that his motivation in helping to found the group was to advance his own belief that devotion to and faith in the state of Israel should serve as “a substitute for [Jewish] theology.”
Other well-known groups associated with the Mega Group include the World Jewish Congress — whose past president, Edgar Bronfman, and current president, Ronald Lauder, are both Mega Group members — and B’nai B’rith, particularly its spin-off known as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Bronfman brothers were major donors to the ADL, with Edgar Bronfman serving as the ADL’s honorary national vice-chair for several years.
Shimon Peres Edgar Bronfman Mega Group
Former Israeli president Shimon Peres, second from left, listens to Edgar Bronfman during a 1995 lunch thrown in Peres’ honor. From left are: Laurence Tisch, Chairman, President and Chief executive officer of CBS; Israeli Ambassador to the United States. Itamar Rabinowitz and Bronfman. David Karp | AP
When Edgar Bronfman died in 2013, long-time ADL Director Abe Foxman said, “Edgar was for many years Chair of our Liquor Industry Division, Chair of our New York Appeal, and one of our most significant benefactors.” Other Mega Group members that are donors and major supporters of the ADL include Ronald Lauder, Michael Steinhardt and the late Max Fisher. As previously mentioned, Roy Cohn’s father was a long-time leader of B’nai B’rith’s influential New England-New York chapter and Cohn was later a celebrated member of its banking and finance lodge.
In addition, Mega Group members have also been key players in the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. For instance, Max Fisher of the Mega Group founded the National Jewish Coalition, now known as the Republican Jewish Coalition — the main pro-Israel neoconservative political lobbying group, known for its support of hawkish policies, and whose current chief patrons, Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, are among Donald Trump’s top donors.
Though the Mega Group has officially existed only since 1991, the use of “philanthropy” to provide cover for more unscrupulous lobbying or business activities was pioneered decades earlier by Sam Bronfman, the father of Mega Group members Edgar and Charles Bronfman. While other North American elites like J.D. Rockefeller had previously used philanthropic giving as a means of laundering their reputations, Bronfman’s approach to philanthropy was unique because it was focused on giving specifically to other members of his own ethno-religious background.
Sam Bronfman, as was detailed in Part I of this series, had long-standing deep ties to organized crime, specifically Meyer Lanksy’s organized crime syndicate. Yet, Bronfman’s private ambition, according to those close to him, was to become a respected member of high society. As a consequence, Bronfman worked hard to remove the stain that his mob associations had left on his public reputation in Canada and abroad. He accomplished this by becoming a leader in Canada’s Zionist movement and, by the end of the 1930s, he was head of the Canadian Jewish Congress and had begun to make a name for himself as a philanthropist for Jewish causes.
Yet even some of Bronfman’s activism and philanthropy had hints of the mobster-like reputation he tried so hard to shake. For instance, Bronfman was actively involved in the illegal shipping of arms to Zionist paramilitaries in Palestine prior to 1948, specifically as a co-founder of the National Conference for Israeli and Jewish Rehabilitation that smuggled weapons to the paramilitary group Haganah.
At the same time Bronfman was abetting the illegal smuggling of weapons to the Haganah, his associates in the criminal underworld were doing the same. After World War II, close aides of David Ben-Gurion, who would later become the first prime minister of Israel and was instrumental in the founding of Mossad, forged tight-knit relationships with Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Mickey Cohen and other Jewish gangsters of the period. They used their clandestine networks to establish a vast arms smuggling network between the United States and Zionist settlements in Palestine, arming both the Haganah and the Irgun paramilitary groups. As noted in Part I of this report, at the same time these gangsters were aiding the illegal arming of ZIonsit paramilitaries, they were strengthening their ties to U.S. intelligence that had first been formally (though covertly) established in World War II.
After Israel was founded, Sam Bronfman worked with future Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to negotiate the sale of Canadian armaments at half-price to Israel and the bargain weapons purchase was paid for entirely by a fundraising dinner hosted by Bronfman and his wife. Many years later, Peres would go on to introduce another future prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, to Jeffrey Epstein.
The rest of the Bronfman family’s march on “the road to respectability” was undertaken by Bronfman’s children, who married into aristocratic families such as the European Rothschilds and the Wall Street “royalty” of the Lehmans and the Loebs.
The Bronfmans’ newfound respectability did not mean that their association with the Lansky-led criminal empire had dissolved. Indeed, prominent members of the Seagrams dynasty came under fire in the 1960s and 1970s for their close association with Willie “Obie” Obront, a major figure in Canadian organized crime, whom Canadian professor Stephen Schneider has referred to as the Meyer Lansky of Canada.
However, Edgar and Charles Bronfman were hardly the only members of the Mega Group with deep and long-standing ties to the Lansky-led National Crime Syndicate. Indeed, one of the group’s prominent members, hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt, opened up about his own family ties to Lansky in his autobiography No Bull: My Life in and out the Markets, where he noted that his father, Sol “Red McGee” Steinhardt, was Lansky’s jewel fence of choice and a major player in New York’s criminal underworld. Sol Steinhardt was also his son’s first client on Wall Street and helped him jumpstart his career in finance.
The ties between the Mega Group and the National Crime Syndicate don’t stop there. Another prominent member of the Mega Group with ties to this same criminal network is Max Fisher, who has been described as Wexner’s mentor and is also alleged to have worked with Detroit’s “Purple Gang” during Prohibition and beyond. The Purple Gang were part of the network that smuggled Bronfman liquor from Canada into the United State during Prohibition, and one of its founders, Abe Bernstein, was a close associate of both Meyer Lansky and Moe Dalitz. Fisher was a key adviser to several U.S. presidents, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as to Henry Kissinger.
Henry Kissinger | Max Fisher
Max Fisher, center, and Henry Kissinger, right, meet with leaders of Jewish organizations prior to Kissinger’s 1975 Middle East trip. Henry Burroughs | AP
In addition to Fisher, Mega Group member Ronald Lauder was connected to Roy Cohn and Tom Bolan, both of whom were closely associated with this same Lansky-led crime network (see Part I and Part II) and who regularly represented top Mafia figures in court. Furthermore, another member of the Mega Group, director Steven Spielberg, is a well-known protege of Lew Wasserman, the mob-connected media mogul and long-time backer of Ronald Reagan’s film and later political career, discussed in Part II of this series.
One surprise connection to Cohn involves Mega Group member, and former president of U.S. weapons firm General Dynamics, Lester Crown, whose brother-in-law is David Schine, Cohn’s confidant and alleged lover during the McCarthy hearings, whose relationship with Cohn helped bring about the downfall of McCarthyism.
Another member of the Mega Group worth noting is Laurence Tisch, who owned CBS News for several years and founded Loews Corporation. Tisch is notable for his work for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, where Donald Barr, who hired Epstein at the Dalton School, also served and which forged ties with Lansky’s criminal empire during World War II.
Wexner’s mansions and the Shapiro murder
Leslie “Les” Wexner, the other Mega Group co-founder, also has ties to organized crime. Wexner’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein have come under scrutiny following the latter’s recent arrest, as Wexner was the only publicly acknowledged client of Epstein’s suspicious hedge fund, the source of much of this wealth, and the previous owner of Epstein’s $56 million Manhattan townhouse, which Wexner transferred to an Epstein-controlled entity for free.
Before Epstein received the townhouse, Wexner appears to have used the residence for some unconventional purposes, noted in a 1996 New York Times article on the then-Wexner-owned residence, which included “a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies: hidden beneath a stairway, lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet beneath the sink.” The Times article does not speculate as to the purpose of this equipment, though the allusion to famous fictional superspy James Bond suggests that it may have been used to snoop on guests or conduct electronic surveillance.
The 1996 Times article also noted that, after Wexner bought the residence for $13.2 million in 1989, he spent millions more decorating and furnishing the home, including the addition of the electronic equipment in the “James Bond” bathroom, only to apparently never live in it. The Times, which interviewed Epstein for the piece, quoted him as saying that “Les never spent more than two months there.” Epstein told the Times, which identified Epstein as Wexner’s “protege and one of his financial advisers,” that the house, by that time, already belonged to him.
That same year, Epstein was commissioning artwork for Wexner’s Ohio mansion. A recent article from the Times noted that:
In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer was working on an art project for Mr. Epstein in Mr. Wexner’s Ohio mansion. While she was there, Mr. Epstein sexually assaulted her, according to an affidavit Ms. Farmer filed earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan. She said that she fled the room and called the police, but that Mr. Wexner’s security staff refused to let her leave for 12 hours.”
Farmer’s account strongly suggests that, given the behavior of his personal security staff at his mansion following Epstein’s alleged assault on Farmer, Wexner was well aware of Epstein’s predatory behavior towards young women. This is compounded by claims made by Alan Dershowitz — a former lawyer for and friend of Epstein’s, who has also been accused of raping underage girls — that Wexner has also been accused of raping underage girls exploited by Epstein on at least seven occasions.
The presence of the electronic equipment in his home’s bathroom, other oddities related to the townhouse, and aspects of the links between Epstein and Wexner suggest there is more to Wexner, who has rather successfully developed a public image of a respectable businessman and philanthropist, much like other prominent members of the Mega Group.
Leslie Wexner Jeffrey Epstein
Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail tour the “Transfigurations” exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Jay LaPrete | AP
However, bits and pieces of Wexner’s private secrets have occasionally bubbled up, only to be subjected to rapid cover-ups amidst concerns of “libeling” the powerful and well-connected billionaire “philanthropist.”
In 1985, Columbus (Ohio) lawyer Arthur Shapiro was murdered in broad daylight at point-blank range in what was largely referred to as a “mob style murder.” The homicide still remains unsolved, likely due to the fact that then-Columbus Police Chief James Jackson ordered the destruction of key documents of his department’s investigation into the murder.
Jackson’s ordering of the documents’ destruction came to light years later in 1996, when he was under investigation for corruption. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Jackson justified the destruction of one “viable and valuable” report because he felt that it “was so filled with wild speculation about prominent business leaders that it was potentially libelous.” The nature of this “wild speculation” was that “millionaire businessmen in Columbus and Youngstown were linked to the ‘mob-style murder.’”
Though Jackson’s efforts were meant to keep this “libelous” report far from public view, it was eventually obtained by Bob Fitrakis — attorney, journalist, and executive director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism — after he was “accidentally” sent a copy of the report in 1998 as part of a public records request.
The report, titled “Shapiro Homicide Investigation: Analysis and Hypothesis,” names Leslie Wexner as linked “with associates reputed to be organized crime figures” and also lists the names of businessman Jack Kessler, former Columbus City Council President and Wexner associate Jerry Hammond, and former Columbus City Council member Les Wright as also being involved in Shapiro’s murder.
The report also noted that Arthur Shapiro’s law firm — Schwartz, Shapiro, Kelm & Warren — represented Wexner’s company, The Limited, and states that “prior to his death, Arthur Shapiro managed this account [The Limited] for the law firm.” It also noted that, at the time of his death, Shapiro “was the subject of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service because he had failed to file income tax returns for some seven years prior to his death, and he had invested in some questionable tax shelters.” It also stated that his death prevented Shapiro from his planned testimony at a grand jury hearing about these “questionable tax shelters.”
As to Wexner’s alleged links to organized crime, the report focuses on the close business relationship between Wexner’s The Limited and Francis Walsh, whose trucking company “[had] done an excess of 90 percent of the Limited’s trucking business around the time of Shapiro’s murder,” according to the report. Walsh was named in a 1988 indictment as a “co-conspirator” of Genovese crime family boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, whose long-time lawyer was Roy Cohn; and the Shapiro murder report stated that Walsh was “still considered associates of the Genovese/LaRocca crime family, and Walsh was still providing truck transportation for The Limited.”
Notably, the Genovese crime family has long formed a key part of the National Crime Syndicate, as its former head, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, co-created the criminal organization with his close friend Meyer Lansky. Upon Luciano’s imprisonment and subsequent deportation from the United States, Lansky took over the syndicate’s U.S. operations and his association with Luciano’s successors continued until Lansky’s death in 1983.
The “Mega” Mystery and the Mossad
In May 1997, the Washington Post broke an explosive story — long since forgotten — based on an intercepted phone call made between a Mossad official in the U.S. and his superior in Tel Aviv that discussed the Mossad’s efforts to obtain a secret U.S. government document. According to the Post, the Mossad official stated during the phone call that “Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben Elissar had asked him whether he could obtain a copy of the letter given to [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat by [then-Secretary of State Warren] Christopher on Jan. 16, the day after the Hebron accord was signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.”
The Post article continued:
According to a source who viewed a copy of the NSA transcript of the conversation, the intelligence officer, speaking in Hebrew, said, ‘The ambassador wants me to go to Mega to get a copy of this letter.’ The source said the supervisor in Tel Aviv rejected the request, saying, ‘This is not something we use Mega for.’”
The leaked communication led to an investigation that sought to identify an individual code-named “Mega” that the Post said “may be someone in the U.S. government who has provided information to the Israelis in the past,” a concern that subsequently spawned a fruitless FBI investigation. The Mossad later claimed that “Mega” was merely a codeword for the U.S.’ CIA, but the FBI and NSA were unconvinced by that claim and believed that it was a senior U.S. government official that had potentially once been involved in working with Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. naval intelligence analyst later convicted of spying for the Mossad.
Almost one year to the day after the “Mega” spy scandal broke, the Wall Street Journal was the first outlet to report on the existence of a little-known organization of billionaires that was “informally” called the Mega Group and had been founded years prior in 1991. The report made no mention of the spy scandal that had spread concerns of Israeli espionage in the U.S. only a year prior. However, the group’s distinctive “informal” name and the connections of its members to the Mossad and to high-ranking Israeli politicians, including prime ministers, raise the possibility that “Mega” was not an individual, as the FBI and NSA had believed, but a group.
In 1997, when the “Mega” spy scandal broke, Netanyahu had recently become prime minister of Israel after an upset victory, a victory that was largely credited to one well-connected Netanyahu backer in particular, Ronald Lauder. Beyond being a major donor, Lauder had brought Arthur Finklestein on to work for Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign, whose strategies were credited for Netanyahu’s surprise win. Netanyahu was close enough to Lauder that he personally enlisted Lauder and George Nader to serve as his peace envoys to Syria.
Mega Group Benjamin Netanyahu Ronald Lauder
Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara with Ronald Lauder in 1997. Photo | Reuters
Nader, who was connected to the Trump 2016 campaign and Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, was recently hit with federal child sex trafficking charges last month, soon after Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested on similar charges. At the time Nader was picked to work with Lauder on Netanyahu’s behalf, he had already been caught possessing large amounts of child pornography on two separate occasions, first in 1984 and later in 1990.
This strong connection between Netanyahu and Lauder during the time of the 1997 “Mega” spy scandal is important considering Mossad answers directly to Israel’s prime minister.
Another possible connection between the Mega Group and the Mossad owes to the Mega Group’s ties to Meyer Lansky’s criminal network. As was detailed in Part I, Lansky had established deep ties to U.S. intelligence after World War II and was also connected to the Mossad through Mossad official Tibor Rosenbaum, whose bank was frequently used by Lansky to launder money. In addition, Lansky collaborated on at least one occasion with notorious Mossad “superspy” Rafi Eitan, who he helped acquire sensitive electronic equipment possessed only by the CIA but coveted by Israeli intelligence. Eitan is best known in the U.S. for being the Mossad handler of Jonathan Pollard.
Notably, Eitan was the main source of claims that the code-word “Mega” used by the Mossad officials in 1997 referred to the CIA and not to a potential source in the U.S. government once linked to Pollard’s spying activities, making his claims as to the true meaning of the term somewhat dubious.
Given that the organized crime network tied to the Mega Group had ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence, the “Mega” codeword could plausibly have referred to this secretive group of billionaires. More supporting evidence for this theory comes from the fact that prominent members of the Mega Group were business partners of Mossad agents, including media mogul Robert Maxwell and commodities trader Marc Rich.
The mysterious Maxwells
The Maxwell family has become a source of renewed media interest following Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest, as Ghislaine Maxwell, long described in the media as a British “socialite,” was publicly cited as Epstein’s long-time “on and off” girlfriend, and Epstein’s victims, as well as former wives of Epstein’s friends, have claimed that she was Epstein’s “pimp” and procured underage girls for his sexual blackmail operation. Ghislaine Maxwell is also alleged to have engaged in the rape of the girls she procured for Epstein and to have used them to produce child pornography.
Ghislaine was the favorite and youngest daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell. Maxwell, born Jan Ludvick Hoch, had joined the British Army in World War II. Afterwards, according to authors John Loftus and Mark Aarons, he greatly influenced the Czechoslovakian government’s decision to arm Zionist paramilitaries during the 1948 war that resulted in Israel’s creation as a state, and Maxwell himself was also involved in the smuggling of aircraft parts to Israel.
Around this time, Maxwell was approached by British intelligence outfit MI6 and offered a position that Maxwell ultimately declined. MI6 then classified him as “Zionist — loyal only to Israel” and made him a person of interest. He later became an agent of the Mossad, according to several books including Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Superspy by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon. Furthermore, Seymour Hersh’s The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy alleges ties between Maxwell and Israeli intelligence.
According to Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer:
Mossad was financing many of its operations in Europe from money stolen from Maxwell’s newspaper pension fund. They got their hands on the funds almost as soon as Maxwell made the purchase of the Mirror Newspaper Group with money lent to him by Mossad.”
In exchange for his services, the Mossad helped Maxwell satisfy his sexual appetite during his visits to Israel, providing him with prostitutes, “the service maintained for blackmail purposes.” It was later revealed that the hotel in which he stayed in Israel was bugged with cameras, allowing the Mossad to acquire “a small library of video footage of Maxwell in sexually compromising positions.” As with the CIA, the Mossad’s use of blackmail against both friend and foe is well-documented and known to be extensive.
Maxwell was also a close associate and friend of Israeli “superspy” Rafi Eitan, who, as previously mentioned, was Jonathan Pollard’s handler and who had previously worked directly with Meyer Lansky. Eitan had learned of a revolutionary new software being used by the U.S. government known as “Promis” from Earl Brian, a long-time associate and aide to Ronald Reagan. Promis is often considered the forerunner to the “Prism” software used by spy agencies today and was developed by William Hamilton, who leased the software to the U.S. government through his company, Inslaw, in 1982.
Mega Group Ariel Sharon Robert Maxwell
Ariel Sharon (right)meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20, 1990. Photo | AP
According to author and former BBC investigative journalist Gordon Thomas, Brian was angry that the U.S. Department of Justice was successfully using Promis to go after organized crime and money-laundering activities and Eitan felt that the program could aid Israel. At the time, Eitan was the director of the now defunct Israeli military intelligence agency Lekem, which gathered scientific and technical intelligence abroad from both public and covert sources, especially in relation to Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
A plan was hatched to install a “trapdoor” into the software and then market Promis throughout the world, providing the Mossad with invaluable intelligence on the operations of its enemies and allies while also providing Eitan and Brian with copious amounts of cash. According to the testimony of ex-Mossad official Ari Ben-Menashe, Brian provided a copy of Promis to Israel’s military intelligence, which contacted an Israeli American programmer living in California who then planted the “trapdoor” in the software. The CIA was later said to have installed its own trapdoor in the software but it is unknown if they did so with a version of the already bugged software and how widely it was adopted relative to the version bugged by Israeli intelligence.
After the trapdoor was inserted, the problem became selling the bugged version of the software to governments as well as private companies around the world, particularly in areas of interest. Brian first attempted to buy out Inslaw and Promis and then use that same company to sell the bugged version.
Unsuccessful, Brian turned to his close friend, then-Attorney General Ed Meese whose Justice Department then abruptly refused to make the payments to Inslaw that were stipulated by the contract, essentially using the software for free, which Inslaw claimed to be theft. Some have speculated that Meese’s role in that decision was shaped, not only by his friendship with Brian, but the fact that his wife was a major investor in Brian’s business ventures. Meese would later become an adviser to Donald Trump when he was president-elect.
Inslaw was forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of Meese’s actions and sued the Justice Department. The court later found that the Meese-led department “took, converted, stole” the software through “trickery, fraud and deceit.”
With Inslaw out of the way, Brian sold the software all over the world. Eitan later recruited Robert Maxwell to become another Promis salesman, which he did remarkably well, even succeeding in selling the software to Soviet intelligence and conspiring with Republican Texas Senator John Tower to have the software adopted by the U.S. government laboratory at Los Alamos. Dozens of countries used the software on their most carefully guarded computer systems, unaware that Mossad now had access to everything Promis touched.
Whereas the Mossad’s past reliance on gathering intelligence had relied on the same tactics used by its equivalents in the U.S. and elsewhere, the widespread adoption of the Promis software, largely through the actions of Earl Brian and Robert Maxwell, gave the Mossad a way to gather not just troves of counterintelligence data, but also blackmail on other intelligence agencies and powerful figures.
Indeed, Promis’ backdoor and adoption by intelligence agencies all over the world essentially provided the Mossad with access to troves of blackmail that the CIA and FBI had acquired on their friends and foes for over half a century. Strangely, in recent years, the FBI has sought to hide information related to Robert Maxwell’s connection to the Promis scandal.
According to journalist Robert Fisk, Maxwell was also involved in the Mossad abduction of Israeli nuclear weapons whistleblower Vanunu Mordechai. Mordechai had attempted to provide the media with information on the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which was eventually published by the Sunday Times of London. Yet, Mordechai had also contacted the Daily Mirror with the information, the Mirror being an outlet that was owned by Maxwell and whose foreign editor was a close Maxwell associate and alleged Mossad asset, Nicholas Davies. Journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Davies had also been involved in Israeli arms deals.
Per Fisk, it was Maxwell who contacted the Israeli Embassy in London and told them of Mordechai’s activities. This led to Mordechai’s entrapment by a female Mossad agent who seduced him as part of a “honey trap” operation that led to his kidnapping and later imprisonment in Israel. Mordechai served an 18-year sentence, 12 years of which were in solitary confinement.
Then, there is the issue of Maxwell’s death, widely cited by mainstream and independent media alike as suspicious and a potential homicide. According to authors Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Maxwell had sealed his own fate when he attempted to threaten top Mossad officials with the exposure of certain operations if they did not help him rescue his media empire from crippling debt and financial difficulties. Many of Maxwell’s creditors, who had grown increasingly displeased with the media mogul, were Israeli and several of them were alleged to be Mossad-connected themselves.
Thomas and Dillon argue in their biography of Maxwell’s life that the Mossad felt that Maxwell had become more of a liability than an asset and killed him on his yacht three months after he demanded the bailout. On the other extreme are theories that suggest Maxwell committed suicide because of the financial difficulties his empire faced.
Mega Group Robert Maxwell death
Ghislaine Maxwell, far right, Robert Maxwell’s daughter, looks on his casket is unloaded from a plane in Jerusalem, Nov. 8, 1991. Heribert Proepper | AP
Some have taken Maxwell’s funeral held in Israel as the country’s “official” confirmation of Maxwell’s service to the Mossad, as it was likened to a state funeral and attended by no less than six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence. During his funeral service in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized him and stated: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.” Other eulogies were given by future Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert (then Health Minister) and Shimon Peres, with the latter also praising Maxwell’s “services” on behalf of Israel.
Swimming in the same swamp
As he built his business empire — and even became a member of Parliament, Maxwell was also doing work for Israeli intelligence, as several of the Israeli companies in which he invested became fronts for the Mossad. In addition, as he became a media mogul, he developed a bitter rivalry with Rupert Murdoch, a close friend of Roy Cohn and an influential figure in American and British media.
Maxwell also partnered with the Bronfman brothers, Edgar and Charles — key figures in the Mega Group. In 1989 Maxwell and Charles Bronfman partnered up to bid on the Jerusalem Post newspaper and the Post described the two men as “two of the world’s leading Jewish financiers” and their interest in the venture as “developing The Jerusalem Post and expanding its influence among world Jewry.” A year prior, Maxwell and Bronfman had become top shareholders in the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva.
Maxwell also worked with Charles Bronfman’s brother Edgar in the late 1980s to convince the Soviet Union to allow Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. Edgar’s efforts in this regard have received more attention, as it was a defining moment of his decades-long presidency of the World Jewish Congress, of which Ronald Lauder is currently president. Yet, Maxwell had also made considerable use of his contacts in the Soviet government in this effort.
Maxwell also moved in the circles of the network previously described in Parts I and II in this series. A key example of this is the May 1989 party Maxwell hosted on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine — named for his youngest daughter and Epstein’s future “girlfriend.” Attendees of the party included Roy Cohn’s protege Donald Trump and his long-time law partner Tom Bolan. A close friend of Nancy Reagan was also present, journalist Mike Wallace, as was literary agent Mort Janklow, who represented Ronald Reagan and two of Cohn’s closest friends: journalists William Safire and Barbara Walters.
The CEO of what would soon become Time Warner, Steve Ross, was also invited to the exclusive event. Ross’ presence is notable, as he had built his business empire largely through his association with New York crime lords Manny Kimmel and Abner “Longy” Zwillman. Zwillman was a close friend of Meyer Lansky, Michael Steinhardt’s father, and Sam Bronfman, father of Edgar and Charles Bronfman.
Another attendee of the Maxwell yacht party was former Secretary of the Navy and former Henry Kissinger staffer Jon Lehman, who would go on to associate with the controversial neoconservative think tank, Project for a New American Century. Prior to being secretary of the Navy, Lehman had been president of the Abington Corporation, which hired arch-neocon Richard Perle to manage the portfolio of Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz and his son Chaim, who paid Ablington $10,000 month. A scandal arose when those payments continued after both Lehman and Perle joined the Reagan Department of Defense and while Perle was working to persuade the Pentagon to buy arms from companies linked to Zabludowicz. Perle had been part of the Reagan transition team along with Roy Cohn’s long-time friend and law partner Tom Bolan (another Maxwell yacht guest).
In addition to Lehman, another former Kissinger staffer, Thomas Pickering was present at Maxwell’s yacht part. Pickering played a minor role in the Iran-Contra affair and, at the time of the Maxwell yacht party, he was U.S. ambassador to Israel. Senator John Tower (R-TX), who allegedly conspired with Maxwell in the Mossad-bugged Promis software at the Los Alamos laboratories, was also present. Tower died just months before Maxwell in a suspicious plane crash.
Ghislaine Maxwell was also at this rather notable event. After her father’s mysterious death and alleged murder on the same yacht that bears her name in 1991, she quickly packed her bags and moved to New York City. There, she soon made the acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein and, a few years later, developed close ties to the Clinton family, which will be discussed in the next installment of this series.
Jeffrey Epstein and the new “Promis”
After it was revealed that Epstein had evaded stricter sentencing in 2008 due to his links to “intelligence,” it was the Mossad ties of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father that have led many to speculate that Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation was sharing incriminating information with the Mossad. Former CBS executive producer and current journalist for the media outlet Narativ, Zev Shalev, has since claimed that he independently confirmed that Epstein was tied directly to the Mossad.
Trump Epstein Maxwell Mega Group
Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida in 2000. Photo | Davidoff Studios
Epstein was a long-time friend of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has long-standing and deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community. Their decades-long friendship has been the source of recent political attacks targeting Barak, who is running in the Israeli elections against current Prime Minister Netanyahu later this year.
Barak is also close to Epstein’s chief patron and Mega Group member Leslie Wexner, whose Wexner Foundation gave Barak $2 million in 2004 for a still unspecified research program. According to Barak, he was first introduced to Epstein by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who eulogized Robert Maxwell at his funeral and had decades-long ties with the Bronfman family going back to the early 1950s. Peres was also a frequent participant in programs funded by Leslie Wexner in Israel and worked closely with the Mossad for decades.
In 2015, a few years after Epstein’s release from prison following his conviction for soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, Barak formed a company with Epstein with the chief purpose of investing in an Israeli start-up then known as Reporty. That company, now called Carbyne, sells its signature software to 911 call centers and emergency service providers and is also available to consumers as an app that provides emergency services with access to a caller’s camera and location and also runs any caller’s identity through any linked government database. It has specifically been marketed by the company itself and the Israeli press as a solution to mass shootings in the United States and is already being used by at least two U.S. counties.
Israeli media reported that Epstein and Barak were among the company’s largest investors. Barak poured millions into the company and it was recently revealed by Haaretz that a significant amount of Barak’s total investments in Carbyne was funded by Epstein, making him a “de facto partner” in the company. Barak is now Carbyne’s chairman.
The company’s executive team are all former members of different branches of Israeli intelligence, including the elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200, that is often likened to Israel’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Carbyne’s current CEO, Amir Elichai, served in Unit 8200 and tapped former Unit 8200 commander Pinchas Buchris to serve as the company’s director and on its board. In addition to Elichai, another Carbyne co-founder, Lital Leshem, also served in Unit 8200 and later worked for Israeli private spy company Black Cube. Leshem now works for a subsidiary of Erik Prince’s company Frontier Services Group, according to the independent media outlet Narativ.
The company also includes several tie-ins to the Trump administration, including Palantir founder and Trump ally Peter Thiel — an investor in Carbyne. In addition, Carbyne’s board of advisers includes former Palantir employee Trae Stephens, who was a member of the Trump transition team, as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Trump donor and New York real-estate developer Eliot Tawill is also on Carbyne’s board, alongside Ehud Barak and Pinchas Buchris.
Narativ, which wrote the first expose on Carbyne after Epstein’s arrest, noted that the Chinese government uses a smartphone app very similar to Carbyne as part of its mass surveillance apparatus, even though the original purpose of the app was for improved emergency reporting. According to Narativ, the Chinese Carbyne-equivalent “monitors every aspect of a user’s life, including personal conversations, power usage, and tracks a user’s movement.”
Given the history of Robert Maxwell — the father of Epstein’s long-time “girlfriend” and young-girl-procuring madam, Ghislaine Maxwell — in promoting the sale of Carbyne’s modified Promis software, which was also marketed as a tool to improve government efficacy but was actually a tool of mass surveillance for the benefit of Israeli intelligence, the overlap between Carbyne and Promis is troubling and warrants further investigation.
It is also worth noting that Unit 8200-connected tech start-ups are being widely integrated into U.S. companies and have developed close ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex, with Carbyne being just one example of that trend.
As MintPress previously reported, Unit 8200-linked outfits like Team8 have recently hired former National Security Agency (NSA) Director Mike Rogers as a senior advisor and gained prominent Silicon Valley figures, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as key investors. Many American technology companies, from Intel to Google to Microsoft, have merged with several Unit 8200-connected start-ups in recent years and have been moving many key jobs and operations to Israel with backing from key Republican donors like Paul Singer. Many of those same companies, particularly Google and Microsoft, are also major U.S. government contractors.
Who was Epstein really working for?
Even though Jeffrey Epstein appears to have had ties to the Mossad, this series has revealed that the networks to which Epstein was connected were not Mossad-exclusive, as many of the individuals close to Epstein — Lesie Wexner, for instance — were part of a mob-connected class of oligarchs with deep ties to both the U.S. and Israel. As was discussed in Part I of this series, the sharing of “intelligence” (i.e., blackmail) between intelligence agencies and the same organized crime network connected to the Mega Group goes back decades. With Leslie Wexner of the Mega Group as Epstein’s chief patron, as opposed to a financier with direct ties to the Mossad, a similar relationship is more than likely in the case of the sexual blackmail operation that Epstein ran.
Given that intelligence agencies in both the U.S. and elsewhere often conduct covert operations for the benefit of oligarchs and large corporations as opposed to “national security interest,” Epstein’s ties to the Mega Group suggest that this group holds a unique status and influence in both the governments of the U.S. and of Israel, as well as in other countries (e.g., Russia) that were not explored in this report. This is by virtue of their role as key political donors in both countries, as well as the fact that several of them own powerful companies or financial institutions in both countries. Indeed, many members of the Mega Group have deep ties to Israel’s political class, including to Netanyahu and Ehud Barak as well as to now-deceased figures like Shimon Peres, and to members of the American political class.
Ultimately, the picture painted by the evidence is not a direct tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.
Though this series has so far focused on the ties of this network to main Republican Party affiliates, the next and final installment will reveal the ties developed between this web and the Clintons. As will be revealed, despite the Clintons’ willingness to embrace corrupt dealings during the span of their political careers, their mostly friendly relationship with this network still saw them use the power of sexual blackmail to obtain certain policy decisions that were favorable to their personal and financial interests but not to the Clintons’ political reputation or agendas.
Editor’s note | The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Rafi Eitan was interested in repurposing the American-made Promise software to restore his standing in Israel’s intelligence community caused by the fall-out from the Pollard Affair. The Pollard Affair occurred three years after Eitan had succeeded in repurposing the software and MintPress has removed that incorrect information from the article and regrets the error.
This article also originally neglected to mention that Eitan, at the time of his collaboration with Earl Brian to repurpose the Promis software, was the director of the now-defunct Israeli military intelligence agency Lekem at the time of those events and that information has been added to the story.
Seymour Hersh’s book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy does not call Robert Maxwell an “agent” of the Mossad, as was stated originally in this report, but does allege clear links and cooperation between Maxwell and the Mossad. This report was updated to reflect this more accurate description.
A woman—who may have been part of Jeffrey Epstein's legal team—visited a day after financier was taken off suicide watch. (AP)
A woman—who may have been part of Jeffrey Epstein's legal team—visited a day after financier was taken off suicide watch. (AP)
The day after he was taken off suicide watch, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein spent at least two hours locked up alone with a young woman, in a private room reserved for inmates and their attorneys, according to an attorney who was visiting the prison that day.
"The optics were startling. Because she was young. And pretty,” said the visiting attorney, who asked that his name not be used because he didn’t want to create friction with the prison administration. He speculated the woman could be a lawyer—NBC News has reported that Epstein paid members of his team to sit with him in a room for eight hours a day for attorney-client meetings, allowing him to avoid his cell.
The visiting attorney went to the Manhattan Correctional Center on July 30, a day after Epstein was reportedly taken off suicide watch and transferred into the Special Housing Unit (SHU). During the hours the visiting attorney was present, it wasn’t Epstein’s main lawyer, Reid Weingarten, or other named attorneys who visited him.
“If I was him, I would have hired... an old bald guy,” said the lawyer, who said the young woman was in there with Epstein for at least two hours when he was there. He also pointed out that the room is locked when prisoners go in, after their handcuffs are removed, and unlocked only when prisoners leave and handcuffs are put back on.
Weingarten and other attorneys representing Epstein have not responded to requests for comment by Forbes.
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Epstein’s daily occupation of the room in the SHU was a sore point for attorneys trying to visit their clients. Instead of waiting 15 minutes for a room, the wait could stretch for two hours, as it was that day. “They wouldn't move anybody until he got where he was going, which is what they used to do with El Chapo, too,” the visiting attorney said. There are 12 attorney visiting rooms at MCC, but only two are for attorneys visiting SHU clients. That means Epstein was monopolizing a scarce resource.
It was unusual because “you meet with your lawyers as needed,” the attorney said. He added that it would be difficult for any other lawyer to monopolize an interview room every day if the lawyer didn’t have eight hours of work to do with a client. And in the visiting attorney’s experience, based on the early stages of Epstein’s case, he definitely wouldn’t need that much time every day with his lawyers. MCC has not returned calls about Epstein’s apparent access to the interview room.
David Patton, executive director of the Federal Defenders of New York, a nonprofit that provides low-cost or free legal representation for people, said that spending eight hours a day in the MCC meeting rooms is unusual, and that attorneys typically couldn’t do that. “We don't have the ability to spend that kind of time on a single visit,” Patton said. Mostly, “the waits can be very long and aggravating.”
As for Epstein’s companion, the visiting attorney noted that she didn’t seem to have any files with her. He speculated that she could have been a first-year associate, and that she was dressed casually. “It was slacks and a blouse. ... Could have been jeans or another kind of pants,” he said. “But, like, Sunday brunch attire.”
The visiting attorney said the treatment reminded him of Epstein’s lifestyle in Florida when he served 13 months on a prostitution charge in a much-criticized plea deal with federal prosecutors. Then, Epstein would leave jail and go to his office on a work release program for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. “It sounded to me like a replay of the Florida thing where he got to go to the office … and sit around rather than sit in the cell,” he said.
Using the interview room for so many hours would have a big impact on attorneys waiting to meet their clients, and a big impact on taxpayers, according to Patton. “Eighty percent of all federal defendants are represented by my office, or assigned private attorneys who are paid statutory amounts, and they are sitting there [waiting]. That's just taxpayers dollars ticking off the clock."
It’s understandable why Epstein would want to avoid his cell. Conditions inside MCC are legendarily bad—”miserable,” according to Patton—and Epstein had complained about rodents and bad food, according to multiple reports. At least the SHU meeting room would get him out of his cell. But the 1970s-era facility left a lot to be desired by both inmates and attorneys. Patton said the MCC isn’t as bad as more violent lockups, like Rikers Island. “But it's one of the worst in different respects: Incredibly cramped—the only 'outdoor' recreation is on the rooftop under heavy fencing,” he said.
As for the SHU, where Epstein was kept, Patton said the conditions are even harsher. Inmates are housed in their cells 23 hours a day, and there’s only a tiny window letting in a sliver of natural light. “It's a forbidding physical place to spend time. And it doesn't certainly help in terms of mental health, or people improving their disposition, or getting them prepared to eventually reenter society and be more productive than when they went in,” he said.
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Testimonies dismissed by Maxwell’s lawyers included that of Tony Figueroa, Giuffre’s former boyfriend. Figueroa had testified that “Maxwell personally requested that he find and bring girls to Epstein for sex.”
A butler for a close friend of Maxwell also said he had witnessed, first-hand, “a 15-year-old Swedish girl crying and shaking because Defendant [Maxwell] was attempting to force her to have sex with Epstein and she refused”, according to the documents. The papers allege: “This is a fraction of the testimony that will be elicited at trial about Defendant’s involvement in the sexual abuse and trafficking of Ms Giuffre.”
The documents suggest a central plank of Maxwell’s defence was to emphasise that Giuffre had sought out the media for money and had formed a victims’ charity to attract publicity – claims Giuffre’s lawyers rejected, arguing it was the media who approached her. Maxwell’s lawyers also suggested the fact Giuffre had “lied to and cheated on” her high school boyfriend was all “relevant in this defamation case concerning her reputation, purported damage to such reputation, and whether she was a known liar”.
Their efforts to distance Maxwell from Giuffre were undermined by the production of flight logs revealing that Maxwell had shared at least 23 flights with the teenager.
Media tycoon and former Labour MP Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime) was given a state funeral in Jerusalem after *accidentally* falling off his yacht – the unluckily named “Lady Ghislaine”. Later it was revealed Maxwell Sr was a Mossad asset who used his vast network of connections and publishing platforms to run editorial interference over his purchased assets to influence enemies and friends alike, ensuring their fealty to the foreign government that had enlisted him for its espionage work.
His tabloid empire was the piss-colored propaganda organ of the interests he served, overseeing its rapid growth and tentacled reach across the globe. More ominously, he was behind the spy agency’s successful attempt to install a trapdoor in software intended for government use, allowing the Israelis a direct pipeline into a vast network of computers installed with undectable malware.
At the time of his death, the disgraced magnate was under investigation for raiding his companies’ pension funds to cover the losses incurred from his multiple and reckless takeovers, and finance a luxury lifestyle he enjoyed sharing with high profile pals like Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters. Curiously, many of these fossilized specimens from Robert Maxwell’s roster of friends from the Reagan era would circle around Epstein, most notably Donald Trump whose Mar-a-Lago resort would later become a recruiting center for employer Epstein’s underage “massage therapists”.
Fast forward a couple of decades since the days a casino mogul was gobbling down canapés with the old guard denizens of the ‘swamp’. Notice a similar, if not identical MO in both Maxwell and Epstein’s role in procuring technology for the Israelis, who in turn sold it with undisclosed add-ons, providing an open window into its users’ databases.
Like his predecessor, Epstein had a financial stake in a startup (headed by former Israeli Defense Minister and later Prime Minister Ehud Barak) connected to Israel’s defense industry that provides infrastructure for emergency services as a call handling platform. Considering the company’s connection to military intelligence, it wouldn’t be a stretch to speculate on some of this software’s other ‘special’ features. A variation of the early technology that Maxwell was able to procure for his Israeli bosses was later sold to the Saudis, who leveraged its sophisticated tracking features to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi.
Epstein, like Maxwell, was laying the groundwork for Israeli espionage activities through his interests in companies with a political agenda concealed in products intended for international export. If true, the playboy philanthropist feted and flattered his high profile friends to ensnare them as complicit partners in what amounts to the legal definition of treason. Epstein’s covert activities have undiminished real world consequences for anyone on Israel’s international radar, especially those challenging the status quo policies in place that prioritize “The Jewish State’s” political and financial objectives over actual justice and global stability.
If you have ever asked yourself why Israel’s war crimes and settlement expansion go unchallenged by US lawmakers, consider the career destroying consequences contained within those dossiers compiled by the braintrust behind Epstein’s ’suicide’. “We’ll trade you one US Embassy in Jerusalem for 10 minutes of hidden camera footage of you . . . let’s say ‘enjoying’ a rolled up Forbes magazine”.
Were the surveillance apparatuses installed throughout Epstein’s properties merely a voyeur’s tools, or did he use them to leverage the moral failings of his former friends for purposes that might have risked exposure of more than the nether regions of wealthy pedo-punters? Considering his connections to Israeli defense industries and his own Achilles penis that required, by his own admission, “three orgasms a day”, the answer points to an unslakable addiction that dovetailed conveniently with his state-sponsored sex crimes.
Did Epstein make the same mistake of Maxwell (who had asked for nearly half a billion dollar in “loans” from his Israeli backers to relieve him of his mounting debts) believing the dirt he had in his possession would prove radioactive if released? By this time, the corpulent tycoon was nicknamed the ‘Bouncing Czech’ a reference in most part to his worsening money woes. The implication of this request, if turned down, was the exposure of Israel’s state secrets. Epstein could have also attempted to collateralize the cache of damning evidence still in his possession to secure his his freedom with the same fatal consequences.
Both Maxwell and Epstein somehow evaded the electronics that linked them to the outside world at the time of their deaths, even though the latter had reportedly made an attempt on his own life while in custody. Both men, facing ruination and serious prison time gave their executioners an alibi: They had nothing to left to live for. The establishment media is already trotting out ancient, ding-a-ling conspiracy theories from obscure right wing sources (attributed to Russia, of course) to highlight the absurdity and futility of questioning the official story of Epstein’s death. Verdict: Nothing to see here.
By now, it’s a given that the parasitic and preferred daughter of the deceased tycoon, made the fateful introduction between her new boyfriend and the Israeli operatives seeking an entry level plutocrat to carry out their blackmail operations after the untimely death of his predecessor. An impoverished socialite has to survive in pricey Manhattan somehow, and that somehow was re-establishing the shady connections to the espionage underworld that had recruited Maxwell Sr.
Ghislaine’s later role as Epstein’s Chief Procurement Officer (or pimp for short) gives more credence to the rumors that she is more than just a debased, barnacle-like appendage to a billionaire, desperate to please her platonic partner by “organizing his social life”, but a fully cognizant co-conspirator in an operation aimed at strengthening Israel’s hand in all matters pertaining to its national security interests, or more accurately, its overseas criminal enterprises.
The recent raid on Epstein’s Manhattan apartment was not the result of a so-called Justice Department righting the egregious wrong it committed by letting Epstein off with a slap on the wrist after his initial conviction that allowed him to serve his sentence largely outside the minimum-security facility with an open door policy for its billionaire guest. More likely, the reversal of Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal was a joint operation between the oligarch cabal informally known as the Mega-Group, and the state security apparatuses that do their bidding.
It’s seems likely that this sudden pivot towards justice from a Justice Department initially spooked into inaction by the spook in his custody, was motivated by the need to remove the most damning bits among Epstein’s vast trove of physical evidence against the pervy punters who visited his island getaway for unintended photo ops with underage girls.
Perhaps his own abuse of these minors was a perk he felt entitled to, and one that would be overlooked in the service of “national security”. It’s hard for most people to differentiate between the government he actually worked for and the ruling establishment on his home turf.
It’s possible that Epstein felt his serial transgressions were merely par for the plutocracy and justified in the service of a higher calling.
The ‘Israel First’ philanthropist shared an unyielding ideological justification for his own criminality as Robert Maxwell, whom the British Home Office had considered recruiting for its own intelligence gathering in the mid 1960’s. Having determined that the well-connected, multilingual, rising star politician was strictly “Zionist”, the spy agency withdrew his candidacy.
Epstein’s real crimes had little to do with raping children, despite the overturned plea deal that came about when a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the victims rights by by concealing the agreement from them. The one time teflon-coated “member of intelligence” who was “above the pay grade” of a powerful District Attorney (now a now scandal-tainted former Labor Secretary) was ultimately (and lethally) penalized for not destroying the contents of his secret-laden safes, leaving his handlers still vulnerable to their explosive contents.
Had the doomed financier divested himself of the toxic assets still in his possession, he might still be roaming the earth today, scouring it for new specimens to populate his underage petting zoo. As a result of the Justice Department’s decision to reverse the non-prosecution deal meant to bury the most incendiary facts of the case, lower-rung punters like former governor Bill Richardson and Senator George Mitchell are being publicly named for their part in the sordid scandal. Someone has to take the fall. (Rule number one of PR crisis management: Crucify the insignificant and let them hang out to dry until the public tires of watching the slow motion spectacle of their undoing.) Meanwhile, documented and/or photographic evidence against more powerful players like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump will have already been destroyed in the pursuit of selective justice.
The fallout of Epstein’s spectacular downfall predictably miss the mark as scandals involving the rich and powerful tend to do. Much of the controversy will dissolve into a Cheetoh dust maelstrom of disinformation, disseminated on Reddit and 4Chan by incel info-warriors before shooting up a shopping mall or playground.
Subsequent reporting of the case will overlook decades of the elite-driven state craft that elevated corrupt and ruthless entities like Epstein and Trump, both ring-kissing acolytes in their youth of influential mob fixer/politcal power broker Roy Cohn – himself a serial sexual predator who similarly caught the fancy of fellow deviants Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Follow the money trail from Tel Aviv and you’ll discover an ancestral link between the corpse of Epstein and his ghostly godfathers waiting with his rewards in hell.
Along with the other disgraced and expendable patsies left in the wake of this ongoing scandal is Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s octogenarian chief legal counsel and ‘wing man’ aboard the Lolita Express. The now unemployable cable news pundit will live out the remainder of his pointless life under a cloud of suspicion. Despite all the damning testimony against him, the statutory rape allegations never quite stick, but follow him around like a sneaky fart, forcing a distance between himself and the rest of humanity that will last until he is engulfed by the sulfurous fumes of his own making.
The former Harvard law professor’s lifelong service to Israel will go unrewarded – not as a result of victim testimony placing him at multiple crime scenes, but in consideration of his own inept self-defense strategy: ”I’m a scurvy rat aboard a sinking ship eating its own tail to stay alive. Pity me”! Dershowitz at this point will be lucky if he can achieve the same pay grade and social status of Lindsay Lohan. Ditto for Prince Andrew who can at least be relied on to expire slowly of gout in his time-out corner at Windsor Castle.
By Danyal Hussain For Mailonline
01:41, 24 Aug 2019, updated 14:21, 24 Aug 2019
Former royal officer said Ghislaine Maxwell visited Prince Andrew several times
Maxwell and several other women made 'secret trips' to Buckingham Palace
Duke of York is under intense scrutiny over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
He also admitted that he fears he won't be able to return to the US ever again
It's also been claimed the Duke of York has had more than 1,000 lovers in his life
A former police officer has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein's 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell made several secret visits to Buckingham Palace to visit Prince Andrew.
Paul Page, who served in the Royal Protection Command from 1998 until 2004, alleged that Maxwell and several other women made trips to the palace to meet with the Duke of York.
He said that the female guests wouldn't sign the Palace's gate book and royal protection officers would even drive them home, or face an angry Andrew who'd become 'abusive' if challenged.
The Duke of York is under intense scrutiny over his close relationship with paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein after he killed himself in a Manhattan prison two weeks ago.
Video obtained by the Mail on Sunday shows Andrew waving to a woman from inside Epstein's New York mansion and the royal has been dogged by claims by Epstein's alleged 'sex slave' Virginia Roberts that she slept with him three times.
The Prince categorically denies Roberts allegations and there is no suggestion he slept with underage women.
The Palace also issued a statement calling Mr Page's claims 'unsubstantiated' and drawing attention to his conviction for fraud and his time spent in prison.
It comes as he faces further lurid allegations of having had more than 1,000 lovers, according to the Sun.
Maxwell has been accused of acting as a 'Madam' and recruiting girls to become 'sex slaves' for Epstein, though she has denied the claims.
Ex-Met officer Page made the allegations against the Duke of York during a 2009 trial where he was accused of £3million investment fraud.
Page's statement was never disclosed to the jury but have now been revealed for the first time.
According to the Mirror, Page claimed: 'It was not just the royalty protection officers who abused their position, members of the Royal Household also frequently did.
Prince Andrew 'has had more than 1,000 lovers' but would never sleep with teenagers, friends claim as he faces further scrutiny over links with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
The Queen's August horribilis: Harry and Meghan's plunge from favour, the Jeffrey Epstein affair and Fergie AND Zara compromised... not since the early 1990s has the monarch seen her family tarnished so badly
'The biggest culprit was Prince Andrew. Andrew would often have lady friends come to visit, including frequent visits by Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the disgraced late Robert Maxwell.'
Page was found guilty of the fraud and was given six years in jail though his boss, former Chief Superintendent and Head of Royal Protection Dai Davies, confirmed some of his claims.
He said: 'This did happen. Royals can bring their own guests into the Palace unvetted and unchecked. That's their prerogative. It is their home.
'Unless there was anything that would give cause for concern royal officers could not intervene.
'It was particularly the case with that individual who had a reputation for being fairly succinct with his words if police tried to intervene. He has been known to be abrupt with police, including myself on occasions.
'It's fair to say and well-documented that he was involved with a number of fairly glamorous good looking young ladies but I have never been aware, then or since, that any were underage.'
Buckingham Palace told Mail Online: 'During the trial, which resulted in a conviction for fraud, Mr Page made a series of allegations about the Royal Household and members of the Royal Family, none of which were substantiated.'
It comes as the Duke of York has told friends he fears never being able to return to the US with the Jeffrey Epstein case hanging over his head.
Andrew has not set foot in the country since early 2017 and sources say plans to launch a business initiative there later this year have been put on ice.
According to the Mail's sources, the prince is concerned about being drawn into civil proceedings brought by some of paedophile Epstein's many victims.
Andrew¿s (left) friendship with Epstein (right) goes back to least 1999. In 2000 the financier and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, were invited by Andrew to a party at Windsor Castle thrown by the Queen +15
Andrew¿s (left) friendship with Epstein (right) goes back to least 1999. In 2000 the financier and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, were invited by Andrew to a party at Windsor Castle thrown by the Queen
At least five women who say they were abused by the financier have filed lawsuits against his £458million estate after he was found hanged in his New York prison cell on August 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Since Epstein's arrest last month, Andrew has been trying to distance himself from his old friend, declaring himself 'appalled' by reports of the 'alleged crimes'.
But the efforts have been undermined by the emergence of details of how he hosted the paedophile at Balmoral, and by pictures of the royal at Epstein's New York mansion in 2010 – two years after the banker had been convicted of sex with a child.
The insider told the Mail: 'Andrew has openly said he can't see how he can go back to the US at the moment with everything that is going on.
'I know this is a source of enormous frustration for him as it is one of his favourite places in the world to go.' The source said that the prince had held 'high hopes' of taking his successful Pitch@Palace scheme – a Dragons' Den-style initiative for entrepreneurs – to the States in the next year or so.
Andrew travelled to the States twice on official business in 2013, taking in Florida, California and New York but there was no publicly-recorded trip in either 2014, 2015 or 2016. He visited again in May 2017, travelling around California (pictured), but has not gone back since and has no plans to go for the foreseeable future +15
Andrew travelled to the States twice on official business in 2013, taking in Florida, California and New York but there was no publicly-recorded trip in either 2014, 2015 or 2016. He visited again in May 2017, travelling around California (pictured), but has not gone back since and has no plans to go for the foreseeable future
It something he is believed to have raised when US President Donald Trump – another former friend of Epstein – came to the UK for his state visit earlier this year.
The two men had already met when Mr Trump threw a private lunch for Andrew at Trump Tower on a visit to New York in September 2006.
But the source added: 'Plans to take Pitch to the US have definitely been put on ice for the time being. Andrew is very disappointed as he has long been very keen to get a foothold out there with it.'
Andrew's friendship with Epstein goes back to at least 1999. In 2000 the financier and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, were invited by Andrew to a party at Windsor Castle thrown by the Queen.
Miss Maxwell, also a friend of Andrew, has been accused by some of Epstein's victims of being his 'procurer', a charge she denies.
Epstein and Miss Maxwell were also guests of Andrew at the Queen's Sandringham and Balmoral Estates and holidayed with him in Florida and Thailand.
In 2011 Andrew was forced to quit as a UK trade envoy after being pictured meeting Epstein following his release from a child sex jail term.
Andrew travelled to the States twice on official business in 2013, taking in Florida, California and New York but there was no publicly-recorded trip in either 2014, 2015 or 2016. He visited again in May 2017, travelling around California, but has not gone back since and has no plans to go for the foreseeable future.
The Duke of York has been keeping a low profile by playing golf at Valderra main the luxurious development of Sotogrande and +15
The Duke of York has been keeping a low profile by playing golf at Valderra main the luxurious development of Sotogrande and
One of the women who have filed lawsuits against Epstein's estate – Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre – has also claimed she was forced by Epstein to have sex with Andrew on three occasions between 1999 and 2001.
The allegations, first made in 2015, were officially struck from the court records by a judge, who ruled they were 'immaterial', and there is no suggestion Andrew has anything to personally fear in respect of those allegations.
Now French probe sex trafficking ring
French prosecutors have opened an inquiry into claims of rape and sexual abuse against Epstein.
They said the allegations involve women and girls as young as 15. Prosecutors will also investigate claims that he and others participated in a vast child sex trafficking ring for years.
Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said: ‘The investigations will focus on potential crimes committed against French victims on national territory as well as abroad and on suspects who are French citizens.’
The move came after US investigators turned up links in France to the disgraced financier, who died this month while awaiting trial on new sex trafficking charges. Epstein had just arrived in the US from Paris, where he owned an expensive apartment, when he was arrested.
One of Epstein’s close friends was the French modelling tycoon Jean-Luc Brunel, who was accused in court documents of procuring young girls for Epstein and rape. Brunel has denied the accusations but has not been heard of since the financier was charged in early July.
But sources close to the royal say he appears to be sufficiently concerned about being forced to co-operate over other allegations against Epstein to not travel back to the US.
Just days ago Miss Roberts's lawyer Brad Edwards urged the prince to co-operate in order to help the victims of Epstein secure justice. He said: 'I look forward to co-ordinating a formal deposition where he will be given the opportunity to tell us everything he knows.'
US legal experts say that if Andrew is considered to have information relevant to any of the civil proceedings, someone might want to 'depose' him – ask him to give a statement.
It is also possible he could be considered a witness in any criminal proceedings surrounding Epstein's death.
Lawyers say it would be difficult to force him to go to the US to give evidence but, if he were to set foot in the country, he could be subpoenaed for his testimony.
In response to the Mail's story, Buckingham Palace said: 'We would not comment on alleged conversations or the speculative premise behind the question but would point out that the case you are referring to relates to proceedings in the United States, to which the Duke of York is not a party. Any suggestion of impropriety with under-age minors is categorically untrue.
'It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.'
A source said that when working as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment between 2001 and 2011, Andrew was asked to travel regularly to the US.
Since relinquishing this role in 2011, they maintained Andrew had continued to travel to the US, but claimed that his focus, particularly with Pitch@Palaces, had been on 'other markets'.
Prince Andrew 'has had more than 1,000 lovers' but would never sleep with teenagers, friends claim as he faces further scrutiny over links with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Prince Andrew is facing claims that he has had more than 1,000 lovers in more lurid allegations following the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the Sun, close friends say sex is 'a big thing' in Prince Andrew's life, though they insisted that he is 'not into young girls'.
The Duke of York has faced intense scrutiny in recent weeks after his close relationship with billionaire paedophile Epstein was revealed, with photos showing him with his arm around the waist of the disgraced financier's 'sex slave' Virginia Roberts, then aged 17.
However, Andrew, according to the friend, is just into 'straightforward sex' and has never slept with teenagers.
The source added that the Duke of York has balanced a 'playboy' lifestyle with his royal duties and responsibilities to his family.
Prince Andrew's playboy lifestyle and apparent desire for new relationships is also the reason he hasn't re-married Sarah Ferguson, friends claim +15
Prince Andrew's playboy lifestyle and apparent desire for new relationships is also the reason he hasn't re-married Sarah Ferguson, friends claim
Andrew's apparent desire for new relationships is also the reason he hasn't re-married Sarah Ferguson, his inner circle claim, though the former couple remain close.
The friend said: 'He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke and he doesn't take drugs and never has, but sex is his big thing in life.
'He was known as Randy Andy for a reason when he was younger and it's never really stopped.
'Travelling all over the world as the UK trade ambassador and for other royal duties has given him access to some beautiful women and he's taken full advantage.'
Prince Andrew was introduced to Epstein in the 1990s and remained a friend even after the financier served a 13-month sentence for having sex with underage girls and became a registered sex offender.
Prince Andrew with one of his former flames, US actress Koo Stark who he once dated +15
Prince Andrew with one of his former flames, US actress Koo Stark who he once dated
Carolyn Seaward +15
Carolyn Seaward
Katie Rabett +15
Katie Rabett
Epstein's 'sex slave' Virginia Roberts alleged in court documents that she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York when she was 17.
She claimed that Andrew slept with her three times, though the royal has strongly denied the allegations.
And his close friend insisted that, even though he has had 'liaisons' with more than 1,000 women, he's not interested in teenage girls as beautiful women find him 'appealing'.
Prince Andrew brushed off the furore surrounding him this week with a round of golf in Spain, where he is on holiday with ex-wife Sarah.
He remains close with Sarah because he needs the 'stability', according to the friend who admitted that most of Andrew's romances quickly fizzle out.
Divorced couple Andrew and Fergie were seen getting off a private jet at Malaga Airport last week following Epstein's suicide in New York.
The Duke and Duchess were driven by limousine to the luxury Sotogrande resort, where they have holidayed together since 2009 often in their favourite private villa valued at upwards of £38million.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement said this week: 'The Duke of York has been appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged crimes... and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behaviour is abhorrent.'
Prince 'was given foot massage by 2 Russian women at Epstein mansion'
Prince Andrew was seen inside the New York apartment of Jeffrey Epstein being given a foot massage by two young Russian women, according to a report in the US.
Literary agent John Brockman said he walked into the Upper East Side mansion to find a middle-aged Englishman being given the massage.
The man, who wore a suit and braces, was introduced to Mr Brockman, an influential agent representing leading science writers, as 'Andy'.
It was only when 'Andy' started to complain bitterly that, unlike him, Prince Albert of Monaco could misbehave as he liked in private and get away with it that his identity dawned on Mr Brockman.
Prince Andrew was photographed at Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion in 2010 waving off a lady who was seen coming and going through the front door +15
Prince Andrew was photographed at Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion in 2010 waving off a lady who was seen coming and going through the front door
'At that point I realised that the recipient of Irina's foot massage was His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew, Duke of York,' he told a client in an email exchange published in a US magazine.
The incident, which appears to date from early 2011 following Epstein's release from prison on a child sex conviction, provides further potentially compromising evidence of the Duke's relationship with the alleged paedophile and sex trafficker.
Although Buckingham Palace refused to comment yesterday on Mr Brockman's account, it will put further pressure on Prince Andrew to explain his involvement with Epstein.
The financier was found hanged in his jail cell on August 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Commenting on behalf of the prince, a Palace spokesman said last night: 'We would reiterate our earlier statement, 'Any suggestion of impropriety with under-age minors is categorically untrue'.'
Mr Brockman's description of his brief encounter with Andrew – which a Palace insider insisted was 'not an account we recognise' – would roughly tally with a reported four-day stay he had at Epstein's home over Christmas in 2010.
Email that put spotlight on Andrew
From: John Brockman
To: Evgeny Morozov
Last time I visited his house (the largest private residence in NYC), I walked in to find him in a sweatsuit and a British guy in a suit with suspenders, getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women.
After grilling me for a while about cyber-security, the Brit, named Andy, was commenting on the Swedish authorities and the charges against Julian Assange...
At that point I realized that the recipient of Irina's foot massage was His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
The prince was guest of honour at a 'welcome home' party for Epstein, recently released from a Florida prison. During his stay, a string of attractive young women were pictured coming and going. In a recently released video, the Duke was seen furtively waving goodbye to one, later identified as former Australian prime minister Paul Keating's daughter Katherine.
Mr Brockman has now shed light on what might have been going on behind the front door of Epstein's palatial 71st Street home.
Others who mixed with Epstein have also recounted how his royal friend was referred to simply as 'Andy' and how they didn't immediately realise who he was.
Mr Brockman's meeting with the prince was revealed by science writer Evgeny Morozov, who Mr Brockman had urged to meet Epstein, a generous donor to scientific projects. In an email exchange dated September 2013, Mr Brockman wrote: 'Last time I visited his house (the largest private residence in NYC), I walked in to find him in a sweatsuit and a British guy in a suit with suspenders [braces], getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women.
'After grilling me for a while about cyber security, the Brit, named Andy, was commenting on the Swedish authorities and the charges against Julian Assange. 'We think they're liberal in Sweden, but it's more like Northern England as opposed to Southern Europe,' he said.'
The Duke, said Mr Brockman, added: 'In Monaco, Albert works 12 hours a day but at 9pm, when he goes out, he does whatever he wants, and nobody cares. But if I do it, I'm in big trouble.'
Mr Brockman said he only then realised who he was talking to. He said that a week later, the New York Post ran a picture of Andrew and Epstein walking in Central Park under the headline 'The Prince and the Perv'. In the ensuing furore, the Duke gave up his role as UK trade ambassador.
Mr Morozov said Mr Brockman was clearly 'acting as Epstein's PR man', vaguely +
mentioning his controversial history in the email by saying 'he got into trouble and spent a year in jail in Florida'.
The prince said last week that he was 'appalled' by the reports of Epstein's 'alleged crimes'. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Nicole Junkermann is at it!
The NHS in England is setting up a national artificial intelligence lab to enhance care of patients and research.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said AI had "enormous power" to improve care, save lives & ensure doctors had more time to spend with patients.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49270325
FIFA Corruption, the Panama Papers, the Mossad, and Nicole Junkermann
I have a story to tell you. A story that causes my heart to pound and my blood pressure to rise as I type each and every word. A true story of a woman of great wealth and power, who rode on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” private jet on several occasions. She appears to be a German-born Israeli state intelligence operative based in London. An ex-model whose name appeared in the Panama Papers from the Mossack Fonseca leaks and who became embroiled in a FIFA corruption scandal with Sepp Blatter and his family. She is perhaps the closest example that you could possibly find to a real-life “Bond Girl.” Yet, she is almost completely unknown to the majority of us.
This lady has recently infiltrated the NHS through the UK Department of Health and Social Care with the help of Matt Hancock MP, and her presence signifies a major threat to the data security of every citizen of the United Kingdom. Every single piece of data about you, your health issues, your blood type, the model of the wireless pacemaker keeping you alive, every detail of every embarrassing medical problem in the hands of the Israeli state apparatus and potentially sold off to the highest bidder. You may think that this doesn’t concern you. Why would you need to worry about a foreign far-right government which has been proven to meddle in the affairs of our country? Your data would be useless to them, surely? But that’s not the world we live in anymore. Big data is the modern gold rush. The psychologists and marketing agents have mastered how to make you buy things; the next step is for them to successfully master making you do things, and for that kind of control over people, they need everybody’s data.
When I was first researching the Jeffrey Epstein case, I trawled through every piece of official documentation that was available. I knew what I was looking for and how very dangerous it was. I had begun attempting to identify state assets through their movements, actions, associations, and by good old fashioned detective work. I was interested in identifying any MI5 or MI6 agents, Israeli Mossad, CIA, or any other part of a nation states spying apparatus. It’s possibly one of the most dangerous hobbies on earth, spy hunting, and if I’m honest, I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. Regardless, Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal was probably what they would give to a foreign intelligence operative. Epstein was a perfect place to begin fishing for potential spooks.
Once I find somebody who I suspect of being involved in espionage, I will track down all existing information on that individual and build the story of their lives as best as I can. I learn every known habit they have and instead of immediately writing an article about them, I just continue to note their activities with interest. I have been watching many potential state actors for a fair few years. I’ve also missed out on breaking a few good stories by waiting for too long. But I don’t want to simply show you the past as much as I want to show you the present, and even possibly, the future.
Investigation Manifest
In the Epstein case, one of the best pieces of evidence which was available to researchers was the flight manifest for his child trafficking molestation machine. There were many coded initials and a few famous names noted in the official documentation. As you probably already know, Bill Clinton and his Secret Service agents had ridden the infamous “Lolita Express” on many occasions. Naomi Campbell, Kevin Spacey, Alan Dershowitz and Chris Tucker also flew on the plane with the billionaire sex offender.
We all build up recognisable patterns of behaviour over time. When you investigate someone, you usually start by identifying these patterns and then looking for any divergences from the anticipated outcomes. In Epstein’s planes flight manifest, a pattern which was visible from the information available is how he would use his private jet. He would use the plane for two main reasons. Most commonly he would fly himself and a number of his entourage to a destination, or alternatively he would fly people to meet him. The rarest occurrence was when Epstein would fly without any of his usual entourage and just one other passenger. There was only one name that jumped out from the flight manifest as a good example of when Epstein alternated from his routine. His second meeting with Nicole Junkermann.
As of 2019, Nicole Junkermann’s current business portfolio is very impressive. She’s often described as an ex-model, entrepreneur and investor, but Ms. Junkermann is much more than just what you see at first glance. Born in Dusseldorf, Germany on 27th April 1975, Nicole Junkermann studied Business Administration at the International University of Monaco, and then went onto study Management Development at the prestigious Harvard Business School in the United States. Amongst her many talents she is multilingual and can speak German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. In 1998, after graduating from the University of Monaco, she co-founded “Winamax,” which was an early online gaming platform that existed before online gaming regulation became a priority for the authorities. Winamax was sold in 2001 and Junkermann would go on to invest in a recently created media rights company called “Infront Sports and Media AG,” where she would soon serve as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The then President and Chief Executive at Infront Sports and Media, Phillipe Blatter.
In 2002, Junkermann acquired the rights for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany with her relatively new company Infront Sports and Media. The company was best known at this time for its president and chief executive, Philippe Blatter, the nephew of Sepp Blatter, the then president of FIFA. This overt nepotistic corruption left Junkermann’s Infront Sports and Media as the company to market the TV rights to major FIFA tournaments. It went on to acquire the rights to all of FIFA’s World Cups, and even though this deal was watered down in 2006, in 2011 FIFA again gave Infront permission to sell the TV rights, in the Asian markets, for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
During her time at Infront Sports and Media, Junkermann would be caught flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” on three occasions. The first flight recorded, on 22nd March 2002, she would share with Epstein, Sean Koo, and one other passenger, but it’s her second trip which really stands out. On Saturday 31st August 2002, Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann would fly from Paris Le Bourget Airport to Birmingham Airport, in the UK, alone. They would return to Paris, via the same route, on Monday 2nd September 2002. For Jeffrey Epstein to fly without any of his normally present entourage is very unusual. So what was happening that weekend? I’ve done a lot of research on these dates, but as of yet, I do not have any answers.
At that time, Junkermann was 27 years old, so it’s very unlikely that they were dating, as everyone knows Jeffrey Epstein isn’t interested in fully sexually developed adults. Finding this anomaly on Epstein’s plane manifest encouraged me to look deeper into the life of Nicole Junkermann, and amongst other things, whether or not she had any links to a state intelligence agency. Were Junkermann and Epstein meeting alone for innocent reasons? Even though Junkerman had made many investments already, she might have been trying to get more funds from an eager investor like Epstein. How Epstein originally accrued his billions is still quite a murky subject in itself.
Whatever the reason for these two incredibly rich people being together, this meeting was a very private one. Junkermann had also just completed Harvard University's Program for Management Development, and Jeffrey Epstein had a high-profile relationship with Harvard which, in 2003, led to him donating $30,000,000.00 to the Ivy League college. Was Epstein using the famous American college to recruit for his own businesses or other interests?
More Epstein later, but firstly, continuing with Junkermann’s career, in 2005 she founded a private equity fund focused on media and sports investments in Asia and Europe called “United in Sports” and managed to raised €242.2 million for the venture in 2007. Her other project, Infront Sports and Media, was ultimately sold to a European private equity firm, Bridgepoint, for €600 million in 2011. In that year Nicole Junkermann had officially become one of the hottest investors in the world. Since her very first acquisitions which I’ve already referred to, Junkermann has invested in or purchased: Shanghai Really Sports, Ziggurat, Thousand-Child, Aloha, Jobbio, Emoticast, Elvie, Auctionata, Coindrum, Spoon Guru, Optiopay, Grabyo, Magnum Global Ventures, Songza, tausendkind, Revolut, Sentient Technologies, Here be Dragons, Soundtrack Your Brand, Groq, Catapult, Delivery Club, Relate IQ, DollarShaveClub, Bruhouse Brewery, Cage Warriors, Eagle Alpha, Gokixx, Rebuy.de, Travelbird, Healthtech Digital, OWKIN, Reporty Homeland Security, and Carbyne911. The latter four of these companies are of significant interest.
The Israeli Intelligence Connection
The link between Nicole Junkermann, the Israeli state intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a tenuous one. The ominously named “Reporty Homeland Security” was the first incarnation of what is now called “Carbyne911” and is referred to as simply “Carbyne.” Described as a “global leader in public safety technology,” Carbyne is a call handling platform app that allows you to, amongst other things, stream any ongoing emergency directly to the responding emergency services. It claims, in the information section of a promotional video on YouTube entitled “Nicole Junkermann presents Carbyne,” that it will:
“provide a plug and play solution that allows 911 callers to connect their smartphone features to the emergency operator so that the operator can make a better assessment of the emergency. Location data, audio, camera and video access can be shared, providing the operator with greater detail on the situation. The use of Carbyne’s solution will allow emergency management teams to better triage their cases and improve the utilization of downstream emergency services.”
They promise to combine the use of personal data, location data, live video, data from surrounding wearable tech, and even information from parked smart cars, to deliver more information to the emergency services who should be responding. They can pinpoint your location, even indoors, to within three feet, and they claim that they can even collect data from dropped calls. However, they fail to mention how they’ll get the permission to use such masses of available data. Who are these angels behind this revolutionary technology which aims to get between a victim and the emergency services?
One of the directors of Carbyne is Nicole Junkermann. The chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel, the 14th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, former Minister of Defense and former Head of Military Intelligence for Israel. Ehud Barak has had a long history as one of the more public faces of Israeli covert operations. Before he was Prime Minister, Ehud Barak was a big name in the IDF. Through the 1970’s, he led many operations including famously disguising himself as a woman to kill members of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation). Ehud Barak has already been linked with Epstein, and Benjamin Netanyahu has helped to highlight those links for his own political gain.
Another of Carbyne’s directors and board members is Brigadier Pinchas Buchris, the former Deputy Commander of an elite IDF operations unit and former Commander of the IDF 8200 Cyber Intelligence Unit. Amir Elichai is the Founder and CEO of Carbyne, he is also a former Israeli Army officer who served in various positions in the special elite forces and the intelligence corps. Alex Dizengof is Carbyne’s Co-Founder & CTO. He’s described as a Software Architect and Algorithms Developer. Dizengof had previously developed machine learning algorithms for robots and mobile platforms, as well as cyber security software for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
These people have always been serious Israeli State assets and it would be naive to think anything has changed. It seems that Nicole Junkermann has some serious partners, and it makes me wonder whether or not Jeffrey Epstein’s original meeting with the then recently graduated Junkermann was as a recruiter for the Mossad.
Junkermann's infiltration of the UK NHS and its Big Data
The only tiny picture of the Healthtech Advisory Board from .gov
I watched Nicole Junkermann carefully as she was buying up many start-up tech firms and at the end of 2018 my worst possible fear was realised. Matt Hancock, Member of Parliament for West Suffolk and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the UK, appointed Nicole Junkermann to the Healthtech Advisory Board. For the vast majority of people living in the United Kingdom, the NHS is an institution which we cherish and adore. Many of us will protect the National Health Service with our lives because that’s what it has done for us in our darkest days.
The Healthtech Advisory Board is described as a collection of clinicians, academics, and IT experts. The official government website says “the board will look at how the NHS can harness the potential of technology and create a culture of innovation, with the aim of improving patient outcomes and reducing the workload on NHS staff.” It fails to mention why it requires an Israeli intelligence linked venture capitalist who has been involved in multiple scandals. Their first official meeting took place on 19th November 2018—see Appendix I for the other members of the Healthtech Advisory Board.
The two members which are of note relating to this story are Nicole Junkermann and Parker Moss, the latter happening to be the Chief Business Officer at OWKIN, which is one of the many companies in Junkermann’s vast portfolio. OWKIN is an AI startup that uses machine learning to augment medical and biology research. On its own, the company would probably be a perfect fit for the future of the NHS, but because of its connection to Nicole Junkermann and Israeli intelligence, OWKIN should be seen as too much of a risk to the data protection for NHS users.
NJF Holdings website announces NHS big data win
On June 16th 2019, Nicole Junkerman’s NJF holdings website issued an article under the title “London Hospital’s Could Offer Patient Data to Google-backed AI Startup in a Bid to Develop Better Drugs.” It was exactly as I had expected. The convoluted title was celebrating the fact that OWKIN had already been promised NHS patient data, and they’re already confidently announcing it to their investors, and their other associates. We need to call for Matt Hancock to remove Nicole Junkermann from the Healthtech Advisory Board as of immediate effect, and we should have an inquiry into how NHS data can be protected from hostile foreign intelligence agencies.
Junkermann and Epstein - Conclusions
I believe that the future unsealing of previously hidden evidence will confirm that Jeffrey Epstein had been working for multiple intelligence agencies. But he is most likely to have been recruited by the Israeli state. Junkermann has managed to avoid her connections with Epstein being out in the open, until now. But she is skilled at controlling her public profile. Nicole Junkermann has become more powerful over the past eight years, and I have seen negative information relating to her previous scandals being removed from the search results. Go check yourself. Type in Nicole Junkermann on Google search and go through all the articles which appear. They are overwhelmingly positive, or simply relate to one of her businesses, and this is very different to what you would have found only a few years ago. When I first started investigating Nicole Junkermann, there were many negative articles which have all but vanished. I’m not even sure that this story will survive.
So, I ask you all to share this and publish it on your blogs and websites, and to bring the name Nicole Junkermann into the public eye.
Also, if I disappear anytime soon, remember. It was probably the Mossad.
Appendix I
The other Healthtech Advisory Board members include Rachel Dunscombe, who was the CEO of the NHS Digital Academy and Director for Digital for Salford Royal NHS Group, but since being appointed to the Healthtech Advisory Board, she has also joined KLAS Arch Collaborative as their Global (non-US) Leader and Senior Tech Evangelist. Manoj Badale OBE who is described as a Digital Venture Builder and has business ties with the Murdoch family. David Gann CBE Vice President of Innovation at Imperial College London. Sir Mark Walport, an English medical scientist and former Chief Government Scientific Advisor to the UK Conservative Governments from 2013 until 2017. Nicola Blackwood the Baroness of North Oxford and a member of the House of Lords. Roger Taylor, who is Chair of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. Jeni Tennison OBE, Chief Executive Officer at the Open Data Institute and lead developer for legistlation.gov.uk. Dan Sheldon, who is Head of Well Digital. Daniel Korski CBE, former Advisor to David Cameron and Hamid Karzai’s governments—and is someone who deserves their own article. Michelle Brennan, President of Johnson and Johnson, one of the pharmaceutical heavyweights.
_________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.
Wexner’s mansions and the Shapiro murder
Leslie “Les” Wexner, the other Mega Group co-founder, also has ties to organized crime. Wexner’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein have come under scrutiny following the latter’s recent arrest, as Wexner was the only publicly acknowledged client of Epstein’s suspicious hedge fund, the source of much of this wealth, and the previous owner of Epstein’s $56 million Manhattan townhouse, which Wexner transferred to an Epstein-controlled entity for free.
Before Epstein received the townhouse, Wexner appears to have used the residence for some unconventional purposes, noted in a 1996 New York Times article on the then-Wexner-owned residence, which included “a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies: hidden beneath a stairway, lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet beneath the sink.” The Times article does not speculate as to the purpose of this equipment, though the allusion to famous fictional superspy James Bond suggests that it may have been used to snoop on guests or conduct electronic surveillance.
The 1996 Times article also noted that, after Wexner bought the residence for $13.2 million in 1989, he spent millions more decorating and furnishing the home, including the addition of the electronic equipment in the “James Bond” bathroom, only to apparently never live in it. The Times, which interviewed Epstein for the piece, quoted him as saying that “Les never spent more than two months there.” Epstein told the Times, which identified Epstein as Wexner’s “protege and one of his financial advisers,” that the house, by that time, already belonged to him.
That same year, Epstein was commissioning artwork for Wexner’s Ohio mansion. A recent article from the Times noted that:
In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer was working on an art project for Mr. Epstein in Mr. Wexner’s Ohio mansion. While she was there, Mr. Epstein sexually assaulted her, according to an affidavit Ms. Farmer filed earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan. She said that she fled the room and called the police, but that Mr. Wexner’s security staff refused to let her leave for 12 hours.”
Farmer’s account strongly suggests that, given the behavior of his personal security staff at his mansion following Epstein’s alleged assault on Farmer, Wexner was well aware of Epstein’s predatory behavior towards young women. This is compounded by claims made by Alan Dershowitz — a former lawyer for and friend of Epstein’s, who has also been accused of raping underage girls — that Wexner has also been accused of raping underage girls exploited by Epstein on at least seven occasions.
The presence of the electronic equipment in his home’s bathroom, other oddities related to the townhouse, and aspects of the links between Epstein and Wexner suggest there is more to Wexner, who has rather successfully developed a public image of a respectable businessman and philanthropist, much like other prominent members of the Mega Group.
Leslie Wexner Jeffrey Epstein
Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail tour the “Transfigurations” exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Jay LaPrete | AP
However, bits and pieces of Wexner’s private secrets have occasionally bubbled up, only to be subjected to rapid cover-ups amidst concerns of “libeling” the powerful and well-connected billionaire “philanthropist.”
In 1985, Columbus (Ohio) lawyer Arthur Shapiro was murdered in broad daylight at point-blank range in what was largely referred to as a “mob style murder.” The homicide still remains unsolved, likely due to the fact that then-Columbus Police Chief James Jackson ordered the destruction of key documents of his department’s investigation into the murder.
Jackson’s ordering of the documents’ destruction came to light years later in 1996, when he was under investigation for corruption. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Jackson justified the destruction of one “viable and valuable” report because he felt that it “was so filled with wild speculation about prominent business leaders that it was potentially libelous.” The nature of this “wild speculation” was that “millionaire businessmen in Columbus and Youngstown were linked to the ‘mob-style murder.’”
Though Jackson’s efforts were meant to keep this “libelous” report far from public view, it was eventually obtained by Bob Fitrakis — attorney, journalist, and executive director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism — after he was “accidentally” sent a copy of the report in 1998 as part of a public records request.
The report, titled “Shapiro Homicide Investigation: Analysis and Hypothesis,” names Leslie Wexner as linked “with associates reputed to be organized crime figures” and also lists the names of businessman Jack Kessler, former Columbus City Council President and Wexner associate Jerry Hammond, and former Columbus City Council member Les Wright as also being involved in Shapiro’s murder.
The report also noted that Arthur Shapiro’s law firm — Schwartz, Shapiro, Kelm & Warren — represented Wexner’s company, The Limited, and states that “prior to his death, Arthur Shapiro managed this account [The Limited] for the law firm.” It also noted that, at the time of his death, Shapiro “was the subject of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service because he had failed to file income tax returns for some seven years prior to his death, and he had invested in some questionable tax shelters.” It also stated that his death prevented Shapiro from his planned testimony at a grand jury hearing about these “questionable tax shelters.”
As to Wexner’s alleged links to organized crime, the report focuses on the close business relationship between Wexner’s The Limited and Francis Walsh, whose trucking company “[had] done an excess of 90 percent of the Limited’s trucking business around the time of Shapiro’s murder,” according to the report. Walsh was named in a 1988 indictment as a “co-conspirator” of Genovese crime family boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, whose long-time lawyer was Roy Cohn; and the Shapiro murder report stated that Walsh was “still considered associates of the Genovese/LaRocca crime family, and Walsh was still providing truck transportation for The Limited.”
Notably, the Genovese crime family has long formed a key part of the National Crime Syndicate, as its former head, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, co-created the criminal organization with his close friend Meyer Lansky. Upon Luciano’s imprisonment and subsequent deportation from the United States, Lansky took over the syndicate’s U.S. operations and his association with Luciano’s successors continued until Lansky’s death in 1983.
WEXNER ANALYSIS: ISRAELI COMMUNICATION PRIORITIES 2003
The Luntz Research Companies | 27.04.2003 11:00
A vital new Israeli propaganda strategy document for the period following the war in Iraq.
Israeli Communications Priorities 2003
The document, entitled “Wexner Analysis: Israeli Communications Priorities 2003,” was prepared for the Wexner Foundation, which operates leadership training programs such as the “Birthright Israel” project which offers free trips for young Jewish Americans to Israel, by the public relations firm the Luntz Research Companies and the Israel Project. However, please note that the report’s suggested language is written in a distinctly Israeli, as opposed to a Jewish American, voice.
WEXNER ANALYSIS:
ISRAELI COMMUNICATION PRIORITIES 2003
The world has changed. The words, themes and messages on behalf of Israel must include and embrace the new reality of a post-Saddam world.
In the past, we have urged a lower profile for Israel out of a fear that the American people would blame Israel for what was happening in the rest of the Middle East. Now is the time to link American success in dealing with terrorism and dictators from a position of strength to Israel's ongoing efforts to eradicate terrorism on and within its borders. In the current political environment, you have little to lose and a lot to gain by aligning with America. With all the anti-Americanism across the globe and all the protests and demonstrations, we are looking for allies that share our commitment to security and an end to terrorism and are prepared to say so. Israel is a just such an ally.
THE NEXT STEP
The fact that Israel has remained relatively silent for the three months preceding the war and for the three weeks of the war was absolutely the correct strategy - and according to all the polling done, it worked. But as the military conflict comes to a close, it is now time for Israel to lay out its own "road map" for the future which includes unqualified support for America and unqualified commitment to an ongoing war against terrorism.
Perceptions of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being almost entirely colored and often overshadowed by the continuing action in Iraq. Partisan differences still exist (the political Left remains your problem) and complaints about Israeli heavy-handedness still exist. Advocates of Israel have about two weeks to get their message in order before world attention turns to the so-called "road map" and how best to "solve" the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Developing that message is the purpose of this memo.
Author's note: This is not a policy document. This document is strictly a communications manual. As with every memo we provide, we have used the same scientific methodology to isolate specific words, phrases, themes and messages that will resonate with at least 70% of the American audience. There will certainly be some people, particularly those on the political left, who will oppose whatever words you use, but the language that follows will help you secure support from a large majority of Americans. These recommendations are based on two "dial test" sessions in Chicago and Los Angeles conducted during the first ten days of the Iraqi war for the Wexner Foundation.
ESSENTIAL CONCLUSIONS
This document is rather long because it is impossible to communicate all that is needed in simple one-sentence sound-bites. Yes, we have provided those on the pages that follow, but we have taken the space to explain why the language is so important and the context in which it needs to be used. If you only read two pages, these are the key conclusions:
1) Iraq colors all. Saddam is your best defense, even if he is dead. The worldview of Americans is entirely dominated by developments in Iraq. This is a unique opportunity for Israelis to deliver a message of support and unity at a time of great international anxiety and opposition from some of our European "allies." For a year - a SOLID YEAR - you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people. Saddam will remain a powerful symbol of terror to Americans for a long time to come. A pro-Israeli expression of solidarity with the American people in their successful effort to remove Saddam will be appreciated.
2) Stick to your message but don't say it the same way twice. We have seen this in the past but never so starkly as today. Americans are paying very close attention to international developments and are particularly sensitive to any kind of apparent dogma or canned presentations. If they hear you repeating the exact same words over and over again, they will come to distrust your message. If your speakers can't find different ways to express similar principles, keep them off the air.
3) It DOES NOT HELP when you compliment President Bush. When you want to identify with and align yourself with America, just say it. Don't use George Bush as a synonym for the United States. Even with the destruction of the Hussein regime and all the positive reactions from the Iraqi people, there still remains about 20% of America that opposes the Iraqi war, and they are overwhelmingly Democrat. That leaves about half the Democrats who support the war even if they don't support George Bush. You antagonize the latter half unnecessarily every time you compliment the President. Don't do it.
4) Conveying sensitivity and a sense of values is a must. Most of the best-performing sound bites mention children, families, and democratic values. Don't just say that Israel is morally aligned with the U.S. Show it in your language. The children component is particularly important. It is essential that you talk about "the day, not long from now, when Palestinian children and Israeli children will play side-by-side as their parents watch approvingly."
5) "SECURITY" sells. Security has become the key fundamental principle for all Americans. Security is the context by which you should explain Israeli need for loan guarantees and military aid, as well as why Israel can't just give up land. The settlements are our Achilles heel, and the best response (which is still quite weak) is the need for security that this buffer creates.
6) The language in this document will work, but it will work best when it is accompanied with passion and compassion. Too many supporters of Israel speak out of anger or shout when faced with opposition. Listeners are more likely to accept your arguments if they like how you express them. They will bless these words but they will truly accept them if and only if they accept you.
7) Find yourself a good female spokesperson. In all our testing, women are found to be more credible than men. And if the woman has children, that's even better.
Link Iraqi liberation with the plight of the Palestinian people. It is likely that the most effective argument(s) you have right now are those that link the right of the Iraqi people to live in freedom with the right of the Palestinian people to be governed by those who truly represent them. If you express your concern for the plight of the Palestinian people and how it is unfair, unjust and immoral that they should be forced to accept leaders who steal and kill in their name, you will be building credibility for your support of the average Palestinian while undermining the credibility of their leadership.
9) A little humility goes a long way. You saw this with your own eyes. You need to talk continually about your understanding of "the plight of the Palestinians" and a commitment to helping them. Yes, this IS a double standard (no one expects anything pro-Israeli from the Palestinians) but that's just the way things are. Humility is a bitter pill to swallow, but it will inoculate you against critiques that you have not done enough for peace. Admit mistakes, but then show how Israel is the partner always working for peace.
10) Of course rhetorical questions work, don't they? Ask a question to which there is only one answer is hard to lose. It is essential that your communication be laced with rhetorical questions, which is how Jews talk anyway.
11) Mahmoud Abbas is still a question mark. Leave him that way. You stand much more to lose by attacking him now. But similarly, he is not worthy of praise. Talk about your hopes for the future, but lay out the principles you expect him to uphold: an end to violence, a recognition of Israel, reform of his own government, etc.
THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT WORDS: SADDAM HUSSEIN (STILL)
This document is about language, so let me be blunt. "Saddam Hussein" are the two words that tie Israel to America and are most likely to deliver support in Congress. They also just happen to be two of the most hated words in the English language right now.
Without being repetitive, Americans fundamentally believe that a democracy has a right to protect its people and its boarders. Unfortunately, as a democracy, we tend to dwell on our failures (Vietnam, Watergate, etc.) more than our successes. It is essential for the long-term support of a strong military and a commitment to national security that we remind people again and again...and again that there are times when it is necessary to take preventative action and that military intervention is better than appeasement.
A WARNING
There are some who would say that Saddam Hussein is already old news. They don't understand history. They don't understand communication. They don't understand how to integrate and leverage history and communication for the benefit of Israel. The day we allow Saddam to take his eventual place in the trash heap of history is the day we loose our strongest weapon in the linguistic defense of Israel.
References to the successful outcome of the war with Iraq benefit Israel. While Americans don't want to increase foreign aid in a time of significant budgetary deficits and painful spending cuts, there is one and only one argument that will work for continuing Israeli aid (in four easy steps):
THE ISRAELI AID MESSAGE TREE
(1) As a democracy, Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend its borders and protect its people.
(2) Prevention works. Even with the collapse of Saddam's regime, terrorist threats remain throughout our region.
(3) Israel is America's one and only true ally in the region. In these particularly unstable and dangerous times, Israel should not be forced to go it alone.
(4) With America's financial assistance, Israel can defend its borders, protect its people, and provide invaluable assistance to the American effort in the war against terrorism.
This is important. All the arguments about Israel being a democracy, letting Arabs vote and serve in government, protecting religious freedom, etc., won't deliver the public support you need to secure the loan guarantees and the military aid Israel needs. All the language we have written in past memos will not work when it comes to U.S. tax dollars. You need a national security angle - one that clearly links the interests of both Israel and America:
WORDS THAT WORK:
SELLING ISRAEL AID (I)
"It was Israel who risked their pilots and planes in taking out Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactors and thus thwarted his quest for nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
It was Israel who provided much of the intelligence that helped America defeat Iraq back in 1991.
It was Israel alone among Middle Eastern nations that supported America's successful effort to remove Saddam Hussein and liberate the people of Iraq.
We stood without you against the Saddam regime from beginning to end. Israel has been a key regional asset and military ally of the United States for more than 50 years. That relationship must continue, even and especially in the post-Saddam era. It is a partnership of democracies devoted to the war against terrorism and the fight for freedom."
As we have seen, the news cycle during and immediately following a war is is not a matter of idle curiosity, it is compulsory viewing. Even more than in Israel, where conflict has tragically been almost commonplace, war means a new and real threat to personal and familial security in America. And Saddam Hussein, dead or alive, still embodies that threat.
Americans have been thinking and talking about the war on terror for almost a year and a half now, and they have come to conclude that Saddam Hussein is a sponsor of world terror and is a particular threat to the democracies of the world. New and shocking revelations about the brutality of his regime are discovered daily, which only reinforces American support of military action. But the fact that Hussein was a direct threat to Israel is especially important. Israel opposed his cruel ambitions for decades - a decade longer than the U.S. Remind audiences that Israel and America have common values, but then stress that we also share common enemies.
But deterrence is only half the message. You really do need to emphasize your historic willingness to compromise and sacrifice on behalf of America. This may not play well among some Israeli politicians but it will certainly play extremely well in the States.
WORDS THAT WORK
"During the Gulf War, Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles 39 times. Israel stood by each time, not knowing if the next missile contained biological and chemical weapons. Israel chose restraint instead of war, because it was what the U.S. asked. It was Israel's way to support our ally, America, and its troops during the Persian Gulf War. We put supporting American priorities higher than our own. But now, with our national security at stake, we need America's financial help."
RESPONDING TO PALESTINIAN PRESSURE
While the Chicago and Los Angeles sessions yielded significant new language and several new communication "principles," most of our previous observations hold true. Too many in the Jewish community are too linguistically hostile at a time when the other 97% of America wants a resolution to the conflict. In particular, you cannot just issue recriminations, however justified, against the Palestinian Authority and expect American elites to be suddenly convinced of your righteousness. All the evidence and common sense can be on your side, but the hostility and negativity will be rejected as biased and one-sided.
Here's a specific example:
WORDS THAT DON'T WORK
"There is no moral equivalency. On one side you have duly elected and appointed Israeli officials from a democracy that has been operating for more than half a century. On the other side you have corrupt Palestinian officials who have lied, cheated and stolen from their people. Israel will not negotiate until they have someone to negotiate with."
While the statement above is perfectly accurate and justified, it will not work. Individually, the words are good, the facts are accurate and the message is correct. But this communication effort fails miserably because it is regarded as a complete rejection of negotiations and peace. Listeners see it as accusatory and contentious - exactly what they don't want to hear and will not accept. We have a better approach, one that says virtually the same thing but in a more effective way:
WORDS THAT DO WORK
"Whatever the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, there are certain tragic cultural facts and differences that stand in the way of peace negotiations between the people of Israel and the Palestinians. No Israeli child has ever strapped a bomb to his back and gone off to kill civilian Palestinians, and yet the Palestinian leadership does too little to dispel the notion among its more extreme citizens that killing Israelis with a suicide bomb is the surest route to heaven. How can Israel deal with a population of parents that stand aside or even encourage their children to become martyrs?"
Yes, this is harsher and more explicit than the previous paragraph, but it works for several reasons:
(1) The human touch. Mentioning parents and children humanizes and personalizes the terror that Israel has to face every day.
(2) The rhetorical question. Even pro-Palestinians have a tough time answering that final question. It's time for Israeli spokespeople to ask a lot more unanswerable rhetorical questions as part of their communication effort.
(3) Acknowledging a cultural difference between Israelis and Palestinians is stating the obvious - and good for your case. Even those Americans that have sympathies for the Palestinian struggle have an easier time relating to the Israelis because of the similarities between America and Israel in culture, tradition and values.
With this in mind, we have identified four specific spokesperson themes and emotions that appeal to American opinion influencers when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and whatever negotiations may or will take place:
OPTIMISTIC
"I am hopeful that with the end of this war, the peoples of the Middle East will celebrate life and freedom. I am hopeful that the scenes of Iraqis throwing off the yoke of tyranny and fear will serve as a model for all peoples of the region. Yes, I do have hope that by reaching out to the stars, we can bring something good back to earth."
RESPECTFUL
"What we are hoping for is that the Palestinian people recognize the leadership they have right now has unfortunately a very different agenda than the agenda of the real Palestinian people...We do not have the right to tell the Palestinians who to elect to represent them but we hope they will choose leaders that will listen and truly care about them. "
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
"It's very difficult for us. We know that going into these Palestinian cities creates hardships and dilemmas for the Palestinians. But it is even more difficult to look our own children in the face knowing that that there are people in these cities planning to commit terrorist acts and not go in there and try to stop them before they kill."
DEDICATED TO DEMOCRACY
"We all know the importance of bringing genuine democracy and human rights to all nations and to uproot the ideology of terrorism. That is what we have tried to do, and we will keep on trying."
We have tested about 75-minutes of new language in Chicago and Los Angeles. Much of it was ineffective ... or worse. However, we did uncover some messages that do move opinion elites from neutral to positive. Of all the language that deals with the Palestinians directly, here's what works the best:
PALESTINIAN SOUND-BITES THAT WORK
Advocates of Israel will do well if they adopt the language that follows:
"The Palestinians deserve better leadership and they deserve a better society-with functioning institutions, democracy, and the rule of law."
"We are hoping to find a Palestinian leadership that really does reflect the best interest for the Palestinian people."
"As a matter of principle, Israel will sit down, negotiate and compromise with those that wish all the peoples of the Middle East to live together in peaceful coexistence. Egypt made peace with Israel. Jordan made peace with Israel. And both agreements still live on today."
"We know what it is to live our lives with the daily threat of terrorism. We know what it's like to send our children off to school one day and bury them the next. For us, terrorism isn't something we read about in the newspaper. It's something we see with our own eyes far too often."
"We don't want to sign a meaningless agreement that isn't worth the paper it is printed on. We want something real. If there is to be a just, fair and lasting peace, we need a partner who rejects violence and who values life more than death."
"As a matter of principle, the world should not force Israel to concede to those who publicly deny our right to exist or call for our annihilation."
"Right now, today, there are still terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs that the Palestinian Authority has either been unable or unwilling to curb-and Israelis continue to die because of it."
"Just as the American government pledges to secure for you life, liberty, and the chance to pursue happiness, so must Israel's government guarantee that we will be secure and free."
DEMOCRACY: CONNECTING IRAQ AND THE PALESTINIANS
"My earnest hope is that with regime change in Iraq, democracy may finally take firm root in the Middle East. If the Palestinian people and the people of other Middle Eastern nations are able to see the brilliant example of a successful Arabic democracy, I am confident the tide will turn.
Obviously it is wrong to assume that overwhelming American support for regime change in Iraq is fully transferable to changing the Palestinian leadership. Americans view them as separate issues - at least right now. That being said, your support for the American efforts to liberate the people of Iraq can and should be tied to our mutual interest in guaranteeing freedom for the Palestinian people.
Americans want democracy to flourish in the Middle East. There is genuine hope that the Iraqi people will establish a representative government with genuine freedoms. In that vein, remind people that the Iraqi people need not look any further than their Israeli neighbors for an example of such a government.
Democracy loves company. So far, one of Israel's most effective messages has been that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It's time to take that message one step further. Emphatically state that while you are proud of Israel's democracy, you would much rather be the FIRST democracy in the Middle East than the ONLY democracy in the Middle East. Consider the following communication ladder that draws the attention first to Iraq and only then to the Palestinians.
(1) Democracy matters. Never in the history of the world has a democratic government engaged in war with another democracy.
(2) Democracy in Iraq matters. Iraq's transition to democracy is an essential first step towards a stable Middle East.
(3) Democracy can bring peace. True regional peace will come only when governments truly represent the interests of their people and guarantee their freedom and security.
(4) It's time for true democracy for the Palestinian people. They deserve no less.
This may seem simplistic but the message works when delivered this way and in this order. Americans sincerely hope that Iraq - a former adversary - can become a partner in peace once a representative government is installed. Insofar as they yearn for freedom and deserve representative leadership, the Palestinian people are no different. This is exactly what Israel has asked of the Palestinian Authority for so long: to establish a legitimate government that will become a partner in peace.
TALKING ABOUT HOPE & THE FUTURE: FOUR KEY SENTENCES
(1) We hope that we can once again achieve peace with an Arab neighbor.
(2) We hope that terror will no longer be the only thing that separates Palestinians from having their own state and Israelis from living in peace.
(3) We hope that the Palestinian people will no longer languish under a leadership that refuses to be a partner for peace.
(4) We hope that we can negotiate a fair agreement with a democratic government that is committed to the rule of law.
As zealous as Americans are about their own democracy, they quite often have to be reminded why they defend it so fiercely. This reminder becomes your obligation when associating Israel's democratic values with those of America.
Using the word "democracy" without giving examples of what makes this system of government so essential is like saying you want "peace" without giving evidence that you've made honest strides toward achieving it. Americans want proof that you know what these nice-sounding words mean.
When linking our common bond of democracy, use specific examples of why we hope that more nations establish the freedoms democracy guarantees.
* Women are treated as equals
* The press operates freely
* All religions are respected
* The people chose who represents them in free elections
* Democracies do not make war on each other
Finally, make the argument that if these freedoms are so dear to Israelis and Americans, they are just as dearly missed by the Palestinian people. All people yearn to live free, and their current leadership denies them that right.
THE ROADMAP: A BALANCED APPROACH
[Author's note: We include this section because the President's speech did so well in both Chicago and Los Angeles and because this topic will be at the core of Jewish and Israeli communication efforts in the coming months. We warn readers that a great deal of additional research is needed to offer a guarantee that the words and messages included here are the best available.]
As the post-war dust settles over the Iraqi desert, the focus has already begun to shift to the Israel-Palestinian peace process and President Bush's so-called "roadmap" to peace. The good news is that the American people firmly believe that if the Palestinians want to demonstrate sincere commitment to peace, they must abide by the tenants of the President's soon-to-be-released roadmap. The not-as-good news is that they expect exactly same from Israel and they demand it immediately.
In both Chicago and Los Angeles, and among virtually all respondents regardless of political party, Americans responded quite favorably to the language from President Bush for two reasons: "a balanced approach" and "shared responsibilities." Keep those terms in mind and use them whenever possible.
WORDS THAT WORK: A BALANCED APPROACH
"I see a day when two states, Israel and Palestine, will live side by side in peace and security. I call upon all parties in the Middle East to abandon old hatreds and to meet their responsibilities for peace
The Palestinian state must be a reformed and peaceful and democratic state that abandons forever the use of terror. The government of Israel, as the terror threat is removed and security improves, must take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable and credible Palestinian state, and to work as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement...
We believe that all people in the Middle East -- Arab and Israeli alike -- deserve to live in dignity, under free and honest governments. We believe that people who live in freedom are more likely to reject bitterness, blind hatred and terror; and are far more likely to turn their energy toward reconciliation, reform and development."
- President George W. Bush
COMPLICATING THE ROADMAP: MAHMOUD ABBAS (ABU MAZEN)
To some extent, your job as proponents of Israel has been easy. Under the Arafat regime, it's not difficult to convince the American public of the corruption of the current Palestinian leadership. While many sympathize with the plight of the Palestinian people, there is no love lost for Yassir Arafat. Arafat is a terrorist; they know that. Better still, he looks the part.
The emergence of Mahmoud Abbas as the new Palestinian Prime Minister comes exactly at the wrong time. His ascent to power seems legitimate. He is a fresh face, and a clean-shaven one at that. He speaks well and dresses in Western garb. He may even genuinely want peace.
Just as President Bush had begun to make headway in drawing attention on the need for a reformed Palestinian leadership, the Palestinians throw us this curveball. What will the world make of Abbas? Is he the new leadership for which Israel has pleaded for years? Or is he an Arafat in sheep's clothing?
Given the haze surrounding this new figure, it is imperative that you NOT immediately launch criticisms on Abbas. This is critical for three reasons:
(1) Overt negativity. If it turns out that Abbas legitimately wants peace and that he represents the true interests of the Palestinian people, then the attacks you launch today will turn the tide of public opinion against ISRAEL tomorrow. You will undermine all of your credibility as the willing partner for peace if you shoot down the first true peace partner the Palestinians have offered. (We don't expect this scenario but it is possible.)
(2) The unknown factor. Abbas is a relative unknown in the international community. Look at his emergence as if it were part of a political campaign. He is not a candidate to sit at the negotiating table until he proves his worthiness. While uncertainty makes your communication strategies complicated, it should not necessarily change your priorities. The more you talk about him, the more he is going to be talked about, which leads to the next point...
(3) Patiently Await a Peace Partner. Abbas may be a leader who wants peace, but it is incumbent upon him to prove that he is the willing and serious partner Israel needs to pursue peace together. Whether or not he has been elected or appointed to this position, he still needs to demonstrate tangibly that he wants peace. Your goal remains a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Once the Palestinians have shown their house is in order, you will be ready and willing to find an agreement. And if they don't, they, not Israel, will be blamed.
NOTE: This is not to say that Abbas should be given a free ride in the press. It is only to say that criticisms must be confined to what he does to thwart the peace process as a leader of the Palestinian people. Allow him the chance to succeed. A brief exercise in game theory may better illustrate this point. What happens if...
You immediately attack Abbas, and he turns out to be a genuine and effective partner in peace?
Israel loses credibility as the party that wants peace above all else. He gains popularity among an international community that already doubts your rhetoric and "heavy-handed" actions, and wins over those Americans who sympathize with the Palestinian people but support you because they distrusted previously corrupt Palestinian leadership. This is the worst result possible.
You immediately attack Abbas, and he turns out to be an Arafat in sheep's clothing?
What has Israel truly gained? You may have stripped his faux wool months before he would have done it himself, but you risked backlash. In the end, it would have been better off to publicly remain committed to peace while letting the Palestinian leadership implode on the public relations front - a strategy that has worked effectively thus far.
You wait on Abbas to define himself, and he turns out to be a genuine and effective partner in peace?
The roadmap is instituted and there is a peaceful resolution to decades of conflict by this time next year. This is the best result possible.
You wait on Abbas to define himself, and he turns out to be an Arafat in sheep's clothing?
Let him keep the faux wool; you'll reap the benefits of this communications gold mine. All your old messages of needing a genuine partner for peace will ring even truer, and the next time, the new leader cannot be justifiably appointed by Arafat.
So when people ask for opinions or reactions to Abbas, put it in terms of a "scouting report" with the following two facts:
(1) He was appointed to his current position by Arafat, which is suspect.
(2) He has denied the Holocaust, which is confounding at best and offensive at worst.
If he is an Arafat in Western clothing, it will not take long to identify him as such. The American people will know it by the actions he takes and the demands he makes. That is an incrimination that, if true, he will do to himself.
Is it a concern that he is a Holocaust denier? Absolutely. Will that fact convince Americans that he cannot represent the Palestinian people in an honest bid for peace? Hardly. Americans don't want to hear about the Holocaust anymore, and they particularly don't want to hear it from the Jewish community.
Nevertheless, you need more substance on Abbas before you can tell the American people you question his devotion to peace.
Americans believe that peace has to start somewhere other than Arafat. If Abbas is presented as that alternative, they quickly identify him as a symbol of "hope." His emergence as Prime Minister (a very Western, democratic-friendly title) is all Americans will need to believe that the peace process should be underway. They will expect you to follow suit and take a seat at the negotiating table. Finally, most believe that the United States can and should serve as an honest broker between these two parties. In their eyes, these are all the ingredients needed to begin the peace process.
It is essential that you use positive language when asked about Abbas. However, that does not mean you must compliment Abbas himself. While knocking him down now does little to help your long-term goals, building him up is also counterproductive. Therefore you must remain positive about the peace process and indifferent about Abbas until he defines his role. Above all else, reaffirm your position that first terrorism stops, and then negotiations begin.
WORDS THAT WORK
"Yes, we hope that this potential change in leadership signals a new opportunity for peace in our region. Israel has long sought a partner who wants peace as dearly as we do. But Israel reaffirms that before any peace talks can begin, terror must end. We cannot negotiate with any leadership that allows its people to murder our civilians."
Mix this message in with one of compassion for the Palestinian people. Many Americans sympathize with their plight. So should you. Americans want to hear it. A statement that the Palestinian people deserve better should follow every recrimination of a Palestinian leader or terrorist.
WORDS THAT WORK
"We know the Palestinian people deserve better. We want for them what we have in Israel: freedom to say what they want, believe what they want, and live in equality. They also should have the right to choose who speaks on their behalf. The Palestinian people deserve and want leaders who will work for peace and not for terrorism. We know that terrorism causes hardships for everyone involved. That is why we are committed to working for peace as soon as we have a willing partner."
THE VALUE OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
An effective communication technique to continue to apply pressure to the Palestinian leadership without looking like you are ignoring Israel's responsibilities is to pose rhetorical questions. These questions will lead to only one answer, of course: peace cannot be achieved until real reforms are in place, and that the terror must stop first.
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS TO ASK OPPONENTS OF ISRAEL
"How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when the same leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state two and a half years ago?"
"How can Yassir Arafat, whom Forbes Magazine says is worth more than three hundred million dollars, claim to be a leader who understands and represents an impoverished people when he has become rich at their expense?"
"Is it too much to ask that the Palestinian leadership not sponsor terrorists? Are we unreasonable to insist that they stop killing our innocent children before we jeopardize our security and make concessions for peace?"
"How can we make peace with a leader that does not believe in or allow free and honest elections?"
"Why do Palestinian schools have pictures of suicide bombers hanging up in the hallways of their schools or celebrate them as martyrs? Why do they name sports teams in the West Bank after suicide bombers? How can we make peace with the Palestinian people when their leaders instill a culture of terror against our people?"
"How can the Palestinian people end their impoverishment if their leaders continue to steal precious resources from them, which are then used to support terror?"
Why has Yassir Arafat been in power for so long, and yet made so little progress towards a peaceful resolution? If he were truly committed to peace, would he not have made a sincere effort to achieve it by now?
When will the Palestinian people themselves have a voice at the peace table?
The answer of every rhetorical question is the same: peace will come when the current Palestinian leadership is truly reformed and the terror tactics have ceased.
CONCLUSION: A LITTLE HUMILITY, PLEASE
Presenting a fair evaluation of your past allows you to present a hopeful - and believable - vision of your future.
You have your work cut out for you. As you emerge from one delicate public relations situation - war with Iraq - you enter an even dicier situation - cooperating on "the road map" with an unknown counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas. Fortunately the former may provide you some breathing room and cover for the latter.
The essential conclusion is to remain focused on your communication priorities from this point forward. Terror ends first. A willing peace partner emerges second. The roadmap is executed last. And throughout it all, you exhibit humility and reaffirm that the Palestinian people deserve better.
This memo has identified language that effectively articulates why - and how - the Palestinian leadership must change. Critiquing the other side is the always the easiest part of public communication, but it is only half of effective language.
Opinion elites in America will not find repeated criticisms of the Palestinian leadership credible unless they are coupled with a similar onus on the Israeli government to accommodate for peace and acknowledge past transgressions. Assertions that Israel enjoys a blameless history are soundly rejected. This will not be received well by everyone but it is essential for your spokespeople to acknowledge it Israel has made some mistakes. Not only does this build credibility but it also allows the spokesperson to then explain and assert Israel's history of taking strides for peace.
Here is how this message is best developed:
ACKNOWLEDGING THE PAST, BOTH GOOD AND BAD
(1) We know that the history of our conflict has been marked by frustration and mistrust by both Israelis and Palestinians, and Israel is willing to accept some of the blame for what has happened in the past
(2) However, throughout our history we have demonstrated that we value peace above all else. In our hope for peace we overcame differences and found agreement with our Arab neighbors Egypt and Jordan.
(3) We remain committed to peace. We offered the Palestinian people a state of their own that included over 97% of the West Bank. Their leadership rejected this proposal, showing once again that we do not have a partner for peace so long as the current Palestinian Authority remains the voice of the Palestinian people. It's time for a change - not just for us but for our Palestinian cousins as well.
1 The Luntz Research Companies & The Israel Project - April 2003
Retail mogul Leslie Wexner, right, and his wife Abigail tour the "Transfigurations" exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, September 19, 2014.
Retail mogul Leslie Wexner, right, and his wife Abigail tour the "Transfigurations" exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, September 19, 2014.Jay LaPrete / AP
Jeffrey Epstein, facing charges of sex trafficking, has committed suicide in prison
Galvanized Israeli leftists can thank Jeffrey Epstein for the shock Barak-Shaffir-Meretz alliance
Answering Barak, Daily Mail says it stands by Epstein article, rejects 'malicious' motives
One of the most befuddling questions surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein saga is why Leslie Wexner, a billionaire entrepreneur, entrusted all of his money to Epstein, a secretive financier with no college degree.
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For those immersed in the Jewish world, there’s an added question: How did Wexner — a prominent philanthropist seen as a champion of Jewish learning and ethical teaching, whose foundation has trained waves of rabbis, Jewish professionals and volunteer board leaders — end up so enmeshed and enamored with a future convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker?
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Is Wexner connected to the sex abuse accusations against Epstein? Has the philanthropist been accused of any wrongdoing? Does any of this taint Wexner’s legacy or the beneficiaries of his many programs?
Since the Epstein sex scandal resurfaced this year, these questions have dogged Wexner, the owner of Victoria’s Secret who at one point was Epstein’s only known financial client. Wexner was very close with Epstein and trusted him as a money manager and legal representative.
Epstein, who served a year in prison and registered as a sex offender more than a decade ago, was arrested recently and charged with sex trafficking. He was found hanged in his jail cell on Saturday in what officials are calling a suicide.
As the scandal has unfolded, Wexner and his associates have put out a series of statements on Epstein and their relationship. His connection with Epstein has also led to stormy discussions among the recipients of his largesse about the ethical dilemmas they face.
Here’s a primer on how the two became so close, and why their relationship poses a dilemma for many in the Jewish community.
Who is Leslie Wexner?
He’s an 81-year-old Jewish billionaire who lives in the Columbus, Ohio, area. Wexner made his fortune by founding The Limited, a women’s clothing brand, in 1963.
Wexner has since expanded his apparel empire to include other brands, like Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch and, most notably, Victoria’s Secret, a once-obscure lingerie store that he turned into an empire. It’s all now under the umbrella of his company, L Brands. He is the longest-running CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
He also ventured into real estate, developing the posh community of New Albany, Ohio, where Wexner lives in a 60,000-square-foot mansion. According to Forbes, he’s worth $4.6 billion.
How much has he given to Jewish causes?
Plenty. The Wexner Foundation is among the most prominent private Jewish charities in the world. In 2017, according to tax documents, it gave $3.6 million in charity, much (but not all) of it to Jewish educational causes, as well as more money for educational programs.
The foundation is best known in the Jewish world for its graduate fellowship, which awards scholarships to 20 promising graduate students in Jewish fields, including rabbinical school, cantorial school, Jewish educational school or another degree program. More than 1,800 people have participated in its program aimed at providing volunteer board leadership with lessons in Jewish history, thought, texts and contemporary issues. The foundation runs a variety of other programs, including training for Israeli public officials.
What does all of this have to do with Jeffrey Epstein?
Nothing, and everything. For decades, if Wexner spent any money, Epstein was likely connected to it somehow. Epstein, a former prep school teacher, had entered the finance world and gained a reputation as an astute money manager for the super-wealthy. He met Wexner in the 1980s, and the two forged a close relationship. Epstein eventually received power of attorney over Wexner’s finances.
In a statement last week distributed by his foundation, Wexner wrote that Epstein “had wide latitude to act on my behalf with respect to my personal finances while I focused on building my company and undertaking philanthropic efforts.” In 2003, Wexner told Vanity Fair that Epstein had “excellent judgment and unusually high standards.”
Epstein also was involved with Wexner’s charitable efforts. In 1990, the two helped fund the construction of a new building for the Harvard Hillel. Two years later, after Wexner’s mother fell ill, Epstein replaced her on the Wexner Foundation board.
In his recent statement, Wexner insisted that Epstein “had no executive responsibilities in the running of the Foundation” and “did not work directly with Foundation staff, and he did not engage with leadership initiatives in any way.”
Sounds like they were really close.
Yes, and their relationship was more than a typical professional one. They were invested together in Wexner’s Ohio real estate development. Epstein lived in Wexner’s New York City townhouse for years, eventually acquiring it, along with acquiring a private plane from Wexner.
Epstein also supervised the construction of Wexner’s yacht, Limitless, and was a frequent guest at Wexner’s Ohio parties, according to The New York Times. The Times also reported that Epstein froze out some of Wexner’s friends and acquaintances from his life.
When Epstein was first investigated in the mid-2000s, for unlawful sex acts with a minor, he denied the allegations. Eventually, however, he accepted a deal under which he pleaded guilty for two counts of solicitation of prostitution — one with a minor. Wexner says he broke off his relationship with Epstein in 2007 and later found out that Epstein had taken a lot of money from him.
“This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,” Wexner wrote in his recent message, regarding the financial misappropriation. “I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein. I know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having ever crossed his path.”
In 2008, Epstein made a $46 million donation to one of Wexner’s charities. Wexner wrote in his letter that “payments Mr. Epstein made to the charitable fund represented a portion of the returned monies” Epstein had misappropriated.
According to CNBC, Wexner has provided documents showing the financial misconduct to federal investigators.
So has anyone implicated Wexner in Epstein’s crimes? And what does this have to do with Alan Dershowitz?
Wexner’s name has been dragged into an ongoing legal battle between Alan Dershowitz and one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and her lawyers.
Dershowitz had his own personal and professional relationship with Epstein. They were close (Dershowitz has said he loved talking with Epstein and would show him drafts of his books) and the high-profile lawyer has helped represent Epstein. Epstein once brought Dershowitz to one of Wexner’s parties — as, Dershowitz says, an “intellectual gift” to Wexner.
Two of Epstein’s alleged victims, including Giuffre, have accused Dershowitz of sexual assault, which he denies. Dershowitz claims that the accusations against him were part of a plot by one of Giuffre’s attorneys, David Boies, to extort money from Wexner.
According to a report in the Miami Herald, another of Giuffre’s lawyers, Stanley Pottinger, submitted an affidavit saying his client said that under Epstein’s direction, she had sex with both Dershowitz and Wexner.
But New York magazine reported that “Boies had three conversations with Wexner’s lawyers in 2015, after which the allegations were quietly dropped.” Boies asserted in an affidavit that “no settlement demand was ever made, or even discussed.”
Some of Epstein’s alleged abuse occurred at the Manhattan townhouse once owned by Wexner, where Epstein lived. Another Epstein accuser, Maria Farmer, said Epstein hired her to work on a mural at Wexner’s home in Ohio in the summer of 1996, and assaulted her there. In an affidavit, she asserted that “Wexner’s security staff refused to let me leave the property” and that she was held against her will for approximately 12 hours.
Farmer said that after returning to New York, she filed a report with the police and the FBI.
Farmer’s affidavit does not suggest Wexner himself was involved with or knew about the incident.
Federal authorities thus far have not implicated Wexner in Epstein’s crimes, according to Bloomberg, but prosecutors are still investigating which if any of Epstein’s business associates were involved with his alleged crimes. In a statement posted in July, Wexner insisted (in all caps) that “I was NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment.”
The Wexner Foundation has not given interviews about the scandal and declined to speak to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the matter. JTA has asked the foundation specifically about the allegations by Farmer and Giuffre, and also has reached out to Guiffre’s lawyers, including Pottinger, for comment.
According to The Times, Epstein also falsely represented himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret, then used that identity to meet women whom he assaulted.
L Brands’ stock price has dropped as the Epstein scandal has unfolded.
How is the Jewish community reacting?
Beneficiaries of the Wexner fellowship and other programs are grappling with what to do, given the association between their benefactor and a sex offender.
“What do you do when you’ve taken in dirty money but already spent it?” one alumna told The New York Jewish Week. “It’s not clear that you can do more than commit to doing anything but doing better research in the future.”
The debate has played out as well in emails between alumni and faculty of Yeshivat Hadar, a traditional egalitarian yeshiva in New York City where some faculty members and students are former Wexner fellows.
“I would like to propose our community take the lead in dissociating ourselves from Wexner and taking a stand against him being able to buy his way into a good name,” Ike Brooks Fishman, a Hadar alum who was not a Wexner fellow, wrote to the yeshiva listserv, according to copies of emails he posted to his Facebook profile page.
Fishman also posted a response from one of Hadar’s co-founders accusing him of “tarring the faculty of Hadar, many of its current students and those who will enter this fall.”
“I am ashamed that you were once my student,” wrote the co-founder, who told The Jewish Week that the email was shared without prior consent and has since apologized.
Rabbi Aviva Richman, a Hadar faculty member, wrote in a statement to The Jewish Week that Hadar receives no funding from the Wexner Foundation, and that Fishman’s email was an “incredibly destructive misrepresentation” of Hadar’s intentions.
“We are proud to be a community that confronts these concerns directly,” she wrote. In July, the president of the foundation, Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson, sent a mass email to those involved with the foundation and its programs expressing disgust with Epstein.
The M.I.T. Media Lab, which has been embroiled in a scandal over accepting donations from the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had a deeper fund-raising relationship with Epstein than it has previously acknowledged, and it attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him. Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black. According to the records obtained by The New Yorker and accounts from current and former faculty and staff of the media lab, Epstein was credited with securing at least $7.5 million in donations for the lab, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, gifts the e-mails describe as “directed” by Epstein or made at his behest. The effort to conceal the lab’s contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab’s director, Joi Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.”
The financial entanglement revealed in the documents goes well beyond what has been described in public statements by M.I.T. and by Ito. The University has said that it received eight hundred thousand dollars from Epstein’s foundations, in the course of twenty years, and has apologized for accepting that amount. In a statement last month, M.I.T.’s president, L. Rafael Reif, wrote, “with hindsight, we recognize with shame and distress that we allowed MIT to contribute to the elevation of his reputation, which in turn served to distract from his horrifying acts. No apology can undo that.” Reif pledged to donate the funds to a charity to help victims of sexual abuse. On Wednesday, Ito disclosed that he had separately received $1.2 million from Epstein for investment funds under his control, in addition to five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that he acknowledged Epstein had donated to the lab. A spokesperson for M.I.T. said that the university “is looking at the facts surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s gifts to the institute.”
The documents and sources suggest that there was more to the story. They show that the lab was aware of Epstein’s history—in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution—and of his disqualified status as a donor. They also show that Ito and other lab employees took numerous steps to keep Epstein’s name from being associated with the donations he made or solicited. On Ito’s calendar, which typically listed the full names of participants in meetings, Epstein was identified only by his initials. Epstein’s direct contributions to the lab were recorded as anonymous. In September, 2014, Ito wrote to Epstein soliciting a cash infusion to fund a certain researcher, asking, “Could you re-up/top-off with another $100K so we can extend his contract another year?” Epstein replied, “yes.” Forwarding the response to a member of his staff, Ito wrote, “Make sure this gets accounted for as anonymous.” Peter Cohen, the M.I.T. Media Lab’s Director of Development and Strategy at the time, reiterated, “Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”
Epstein’s apparent role in directing outside contributions was also elided. In October, 2014, the Media Lab received a two-million-dollar donation from Bill Gates; Ito wrote in an internal e-mail, “This is a $2M gift from Bill Gates directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” Cohen replied, “For gift recording purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this gift.” A mandatory record of the gift filed within the university stated only that “Gates is making this gift at the recommendation of a friend of his who wishes to remain anonymous.” Knowledge of Epstein’s alleged role was usually kept within a tight circle. In response to the university filing, Cohen wrote to colleagues, “I did not realize that this would be sent to dozens of people,” adding that Epstein “is not named but questions could be asked” and that “I feel uncomfortable that this was distributed so widely.” He wrote that future filings related to Epstein should be submitted only “if there is a way to do it quietly.” An agent for Gates wrote to the leadership of the Media Lab, stating that Gates also wished to keep his name out of any public discussion of the donation.
A spokesperson for Gates said that “any claim that Epstein directed any programmatic or personal grantmaking for Bill Gates is completely false.” A source close to Gates said that the entrepreneur has a long-standing relationship with the lab, and that anonymous donations from him or his foundation are not atypical. Gates has previously denied receiving financial advisory services from Epstein; in August, CNBC reported that he met with Epstein in New York in 2013, to discuss “ways to increase philanthropic spending.”
Joi Ito and Peter Cohen did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Ito, in his public statements, has downplayed his closeness with Epstein, stating that “Regrettably, over the years, the Lab has received money through some of the foundations that he controlled,” and acknowledging only that he “knew about” gifts and personally gave permission. But the e-mails show that Ito consulted closely with Epstein and actively sought the various donations. At one point, Cohen reached out to Ito for advice about a donor, writing, “you or Jeffrey would know best.”
Epstein, who socialized with a range of high-profile and influential people, had for years been followed by claims that he sexually abused underage girls. Police investigated the reports several times. In 2008, after a Florida grand jury charged Epstein with soliciting prostitution, he received a controversial plea deal, which shielded him from federal prosecution and allowed him to serve less than thirteen months, and much of it on a “work release,” permitting him to spend much of his time out of jail. Alexander Acosta, the prosecutor responsible for that plea deal, went on to become President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, but resigned from that post in July, amid widespread criticism related to the Epstein case. That same month, Esptein was arrested in New York, on federal sex-trafficking charges. He died from suicide, in a jail cell in Manhattan, last month.
Current and former faculty and staff of the media lab described a pattern of concealing Epstein’s involvement with the institution. Signe Swenson, a former development associate and alumni coordinator at the lab, told me that she resigned in 2016 in part because of her discomfort about the lab’s work with Epstein. She said that the lab’s leadership made it explicit, even in her earliest conversations with them, that Epstein’s donations had to be kept secret. In early 2014, while Swenson was working in M.I.T.’s central fund-raising office, as a development associate, she had breakfast with Cohen, the Director of Development and Strategy. They discussed her application for a fund-raising role at the Media Lab. According to Swenson, Cohen explained to her that the lab was currently working with Epstein and that it was seeking to do more with the financier. “He said Joi has been working with Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein’s connecting us to other people,” Swenson recalled. She assumed that Cohen raised the matter “to test whether I would be confidential and sort of feel out whether I would be O.K. with the situation.”
Swenson had seen that Epstein was listed in the university’s central donor database as disqualified. “I knew he was a pedophile and pointed that out,” she said. She recalled telling Cohen that working with Epstein “doesn't seem like a great idea.” But she respected the lab’s work and ultimately accepted a job with them.
That spring, during her first week in her new role, the issue arose again. Swenson recalled having a conversation with Cohen and Ito about how to take money from Epstein without reporting it within the university. Cohen asked, “How do we do this?” Swenson replied that, due to the university’s internal-reporting requirements, there was no way to keep the donations under the radar. Ito, as Swenson recalled, replied, “we can take small gifts anonymously.”
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In the course of 2014 and 2015, according to the e-mails and sources, Ito and Epstein also developed an ambitious plan to secure a large new influx of contributions from Epstein’s contacts, including Gates, without disclosing the full extent of the financier’s involvement to M.I.T.’s central fundraising office. The e-mails show that Epstein was the point person for communication with the donors, including Gates and Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms. In one message to Ito, Epstein wrote, “Gates would like a write up on our one science program for tues next week.” In an e-mail from Cohen to Ito, asking whether Black wished his contributions to remain anonymous, Cohen wrote, “Can you ask Jeffrey to ask Leon that?” He added, “We can make it anonymous easily, unless Leon would like the credit. If Jeffrey tells you that Leon would like a little love from MIT, we can arrange that too.…”
Black declined to comment. A source close to him said that he did not intend for the donation to be anonymous. Black has downplayed his relationship with Epstein in recent months, describing it as limited and focussed on tax strategy, estate planning, and philanthropic advice. He has declined to answer questions about business dealings with Epstein that suggest a closer relationship. Several years after Epstein’s conviction, Black and his children and Epstein jointly invested in a company that makes emission-control products.
Although the lab ultimately secured the $7.5 million from Gates and Black, Epstein and Ito’s fund-raising plan failed to reach the still larger scale that they had initially hoped. Epstein had suggested that he could insure that any donations he solicited, including those from Gates and Black, would be matched by the John Templeton Foundation, which funds projects at the intersection of faith and science. Ultimately, the Foundation did not provide funding and a spokesperson said that the organization has no records related to any such plan.
In the summer of 2015, as the Media Lab determined how to spend the funds it had received with Epstein’s help, Cohen informed lab staff that Epstein would be coming for a visit. The financier would meet with faculty members, apparently to allow him to give input on projects and to entice him to contribute further. Swenson, the former development associate and alumni coördinator, recalled saying, referring to Epstein, “I don’t think he should be on campus.” She told me, “At that point it hit me: this pedophile is going to be in our office.” According to Swenson, Cohen agreed that Epstein was “unsavory” but said “we’re planning to do it anyway—this was Joi’s project.” Staffers entered the meeting into Ito’s calendar without including Epstein’s name. They also tried to keep his name out of e-mail communication. “There was definitely an explicit conversation about keeping it off the books, because Joi's calendar is visible to everyone,” Swenson said. “It was just marked as a V.I.P. visit.”
By then, several faculty and staff members had objected to the university’s relationship with Epstein. Associate Professor Ethan Zuckerman had voiced concerns about the relationship with Epstein for years. In 2013, Zuckerman said, he pulled Ito aside after a faculty meeting to express concern about meetings on Ito’s calendar marked “J.E.” Zuckerman recalled saying, “I heard you’re meeting with Epstein. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” and Ito responding, “You know, he’s really fascinating. Would you like to meet him?” Zuckerman declined and said that he believed the relationship could have negative consequences for the lab.
In 2015, as Epstein’s visit drew near, Cohen instructed his staff to insure that Zuckerman, if he unexpectedly arrived while Epstein was present, be kept away from the glass-walled office in which Epstein would be conducting meetings. According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait outside the meeting room.
On the day of the visit, Swenson’s distress deepened at the sight of the young women. “They were models. Eastern European, definitely,” she told me. Among the lab’s staff, she said, “all of us women made it a point to be super nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them.”
Swenson and several other former and current M.I.T. Media Lab employees expressed discomfort over the lab’s recent statements about its relationship with Epstein. In August, two researchers, including Zuckerman, resigned in protest over the matter. In a Medium post announcing the decision, Zuckerman wrote that M.I.T. had “violated its own values so clearly in working with Epstein and in disguising that relationship.” Zuckerman began providing counsel to other colleagues who also objected. He directed Swenson to seek representation from the legal nonprofit Whistleblower Aid, and she began the process of going public. “Jeffrey Epstein shows that—with enough money—a convicted sex offender can open doors at the highest level of philanthropy,” John Tye, Swenson’s attorney at Whistleblower Aid, told me. “Joi Ito and his development chief went out of their way to keep Epstein’s role under wraps. When institutions try to hide the truth, it often takes a brave whistleblower to step forward. But it can be dangerous, and whistleblowers need support.”
Questions about when to accept money from wealthy figures accused of misconduct have always been fraught. Before his conviction, Epstein donated to numerous philanthropic, academic, and political institutions, which responded in a variety of ways to the claims of abuse. When news of the allegations first broke, in 2006, a Harvard spokesperson said that the university, which had received a $6.5-million donation from him three years earlier, would not be returning the money. Following Epstein’s second arrest, in 2019, the university reiterated its stance. Many institutions attempted to distance themselves from Epstein after 2006, but others, including the M.I.T. Media Lab, continued to accept his money. When such donations come to light, institutions face difficult decisions about how to respond. The funds have often already been spent, and the tax deductions already taken by donors. But the revelations about Epstein’s widespread sexual misconduct, most notably reported by Julie K. Brown in the Miami Herald, have made clear that Epstein used the status and prestige afforded him by his relationships with élite institutions to shield himself from accountability and continue his alleged predation.
Swenson said that, even though she resigned over the lab’s relationship with Epstein, her participation in what she took to be a cover-up of his contributions has weighed heavily on her since. Her feelings of guilt were revived when she learned of recent statements from Ito and M.I.T. leadership that she believed to be lies. “I was a participant in covering up for Epstein in 2014,” she told me. “Listening to what comments are coming out of the lab or M.I.T. about the relationship—I just see exactly the same thing happening again.”
Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer to The New Yorker and the author of the forthcoming book “Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators.” His reporting for The New Yorker won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Dying patients will be treated with psychedelic synthetic magic mushrooms under a medical trial aiming to ease the paralysing anxiety felt by palliative care patients.
Nobody seems to have considered: flimsy evidence against Andrew, after all Virginia Roberts consented to sleep with him, is being used to intimidate the UK royal family during (final?) #Brexit debacles?
The criminal is surely sex trafficker #GhislaineMaxwell, not Prince Andrew. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
George Martin
Yahoo News UKSeptember 22, 2019, 11:58 AM UTC
Prince Andrew has previously denied any involvement in the scandal. (Getty)
Prince Andrew has previously denied any involvement in the scandal. (Getty)
MI6 is reportedly concerned that Russia has evidence which could link Prince Andrew to the Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse scandal.
Spy chiefs are said to be worried that a former Florida deputy sheriff, who had access to the investigation into Epstein, has provided sensitive information about the case to Russian intelligence officials.
A source told The Times that John Mark Dougan, a former deputy in the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office, has made contact with the Russian government since moving to Moscow.
Dougan was part of the original investigation into Epstein after a Palm Beach woman claimed back in 2005 that the billionaire had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter $300 to strip to her underwear and perform an “erotic massage”.
MI6 is reportedly worried that an officer involved with the original investigation into Epstein (pictured) may have compromising information about the Duke of York. (Reuters)
MI6 is reportedly worried that an officer involved with the original investigation into Epstein (pictured) may have compromising information about the Duke of York. (Reuters)
Dougan said on Facebook in July that he had spoken to investigators about the case when it was reopened and still has confidential documents no-one else has seen.
The former office himself said the information would be “incredibly valuable” for any intelligence agency and might give “leverage” over “a guy like Prince Andrew”.
“His knowledge of the Epstein case would have been of great interest to Russian intelligence,” the source said.
It comes as Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, said she was forced into sexual encounters with the Duke of York, who “knows the truth”.
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Ms Giuffre is one of 16 women who say they were abused by convicted paedophile Epstein, and she has previously claimed in court papers that she was forced to have sex with Andrew as a 17-year-old.
Her allegations, which Andrew strongly denies, were struck from US civil court records in 2015 after a judge said they were “immaterial and impertinent”.
In her first broadcast interview along with five other alleged victims, Mrs Giuffre said she was forced into sexual encounters with Andrew in London, Epstein’s New York mansion, and a third incident in the US Virgin Islands.
Buckingham Palace has previously contested reports about Andrew’s relationship with Epstein, including a private jet flight they are said to have shared with Mrs Giuffre, then known as Virginia Roberts.
Lawyer David Boies arrives with his client Virginia Giuffre for hearing in the criminal case against Epstein last month. (Getty)
Lawyer David Boies arrives with his client Virginia Giuffre for hearing in the criminal case against Epstein last month. (Getty)
Mrs Giuffre said she was introduced to Epstein, and later Andrew, by British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
She said: “The first time in London I was so young. Ghislaine woke me up in the morning and said: ‘You’re going to meet a prince today’.
“I did not know at that point I was going to be trafficked to that prince, and then that night Prince Andrew came to her house in London.”
Mrs Giuffre said she spent a night in Mayfair’s exclusive Club Tramp with Andrew, Epstein and Ms Maxwell.
She continued: “We leave Club Tramp and I hop in the car with Ghislaine and Jeffrey, and Ghislaine said ‘he’s coming back to the house and I want you to do for him what you do for Epstein’.
“I couldn’t believe it.”
Describing Andrew after the alleged incident, she said: “He wasn’t rude or anything about it, he said thank you and some kind of soft sentiments like that, and left.
“I couldn’t believe that even royalty were involved.
“He denies that it ever happened, and he is going to keep denying that it ever happened, but he knows the truth and I know the truth.”
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'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
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Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The two have gone to ground since Epstein was found hanged on August 10
They are thought to have been in Santa Catarina after Brunel's phone was traced to the Infinity Blue Resort and Spa and Maxwell's cell records put her in the area
Brunel was last pictured at the exclusive Paris Country Club on July 5
His lawyer said on October 7 he is willing to cooperate with officials in Paris
The only public sighting of Maxwell since Epstein's death has been a set of photographs that purported to show her at an In-N-Out in Los Angeles
She has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein
Following Epstein's death in what was ruled a suicide, Attorney General Bill Barr vowed to continue the sex-trafficking case against 'any co-conspirators'
By LAUREN FRUEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:17, 15 October 2019 | UPDATED: 01:24, 17 October 2019
Jeffrey Epstein's close associates Ghislaine Maxwell and Jean-Luc Brunel have both been traced to an upmarket resort on the Brazilian riviera, according to one former police officer.
The two, who have gone to ground since Epstein was found hanged in New York jail cell on August 10 aged 66, are thought to have been in Santa Catarina after both their cell phones were traced there, Sky News reports.
Brunel's phone was traced to the pricey Infinity Blue Resort and Spa there. Maxwell's cell records also put her in the area, according to the ex US cop.
There was no sign of Brunel, who was last pictured at the exclusive Paris Country Club on July 5, or Maxwell at the hotel when it was visited by reporters.
Brunel's phone linked to the pricey Infinity Blue Resort and Spa there in Santa Catarina, pictured. Maxwell's cell records also put her in the area, according to reports
Following Epstein's death behind bars in what was ruled a suicide, Attorney General Bill Barr vowed to continue the sex-trafficking case against 'any co-conspirators'.
Brunel's lawyer said on October 7 his client is willing to cooperate with officials in Paris who are investigating Epstein.
Maxwell, 57, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein and managing the complex logistics of his perverse crimes. She denies the allegations.
The only public sighting of her since Epstein's death has been a set of photographs that purported to show Maxwell at an In-N-Out in Los Angeles.
Epstein was found hanged in New York jail cell on August 10 aged 66 +5
Epstein was found hanged in New York jail cell on August 10 aged 66
DailyMail.com revealed that those photos were staged, possibly to throw investigators off of her trail.
She filed to close her business days after Epstein's arrest in America and in the UK after his death and had been hiding out at a secluded $3M oceanfront property in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
The daughter of British newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine first met Epstein at a party in New York City in the 1990s.
The two had a romantic relationship for several years, but the exact nature of their relationship over the following decades remains unclear.
It was Maxwell, though, who first introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew - a relationship that is coming under increasing scrutiny, despite Andrew's firm denials that he ever engaged in sexual misconduct.
Epstein's household staff have described her as 'Lady of the House' and sworn in depositions that she was at the center of managing his household affairs.
His accusers have said that Maxwell's authority extended to managing the complex logistics of his perverse activities with girls as young as 14.
Some of the most serious allegations have come from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused Maxwell in a lawsuit of luring her to become an international sex slave for Epstein and his pals.
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Prosecutors in Paris are looking into possible charges of rape and sexual assault against Epstein, both for crimes that he allegedly committed on French soil, as well as ones that he may have committed in other countries involving French citizens.
Brunel's attorney Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt denied that he is 'on the run' and said that he has made himself available to authorities ever since the launch of this latest probe.
'Before even the preliminary investigation was launched, he made contact with the Paris prosecutor’s office, informing it that he remained at the disposal of the authorities,' said the attorney.
Brunel was last pictured at the exclusive Paris Country Club on July 5. He not been publicly seen since Epstein was found hanged but his lawyer said on October 7 his client is willing to cooperate with officials in Paris who are investigating Epstein +5
Brunel was last pictured at the exclusive Paris Country Club on July 5. He not been publicly seen since Epstein was found hanged but his lawyer said on October 7 his client is willing to cooperate with officials in Paris who are investigating Epstein
Maxwell, 57, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein and managing the complex logistics of his perverse crimes. She denies the allegations. Maxwell had been hiding out at this secluded $3M oceanfront property in Manchester-by-the-Sea +5
Maxwell, 57, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein and managing the complex logistics of his perverse crimes. She denies the allegations. Maxwell had been hiding out at this secluded $3M oceanfront property in Manchester-by-the-Sea
Those same prosecutors are also looking into Brunel after three women came forward to allege that they were sexually assaulted or harassed by the Frenchman.
Police began their probe into Brunel shortly after receiving a letter from a former Dutch model, Thysia Huisman, who said that Brunel spiked her drink and then raped her in his apartment just days after the teenager moved to Paris and signed with his agency, Karin Models.
Huisman said that she was aware the statute of limitations had lapsed for her to press charges against Brunel for rape, but urged authorities to look into Brunel and his businesses.
The office of Karin Models was raided by authorities, but its owner was nowhere to be found.
In a court filing submitted in one of her defamation cases, Giuffre described Brunel's relationship with Epstein.
'He would bring young girls (ranging from ages as young as twelve) to the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein,' stated one filing.
'Brunel would offer the girls "modeling" jobs. Many of the girls came from poor countries or impoverished backgrounds, and he lured them in with a promise of making good money.'
Brunel denies supplying underage girls to Epstein and of assaulting models himself, The Daily Beast reports.
The daughter of British newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine first met Epstein at a party in New York City in the 1990s. The two had a romantic relationship for several years, but the exact nature of their relationship over the following decades remains unclear +5
The daughter of British newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine first met Epstein at a party in New York City in the 1990s. The two had a romantic relationship for several years, but the exact nature of their relationship over the following decades remains unclear
This investigation into Brunel runs parallel to one into convicted pedophile Epstein, who at one point gave Brunel $1 million to launch a new modelling agency in the United States.
That investment allegedly earned Epstein a steady supply of underage girls - as many as 1,000 - who were said to be procured by Brunel, often by bringing minor victims from Europe to the United States by offering them a modelling contract through Karin or another agency, MC2.
In one instance, according to claims made by Giuffre in court filings, Brunel provided Epstein with three sisters who were all aged 12 for his birthday.
In a world exclusive interview, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis speaks to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York at Buckingham Palace.
For the first time, the Duke addresses in his own words the details of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
In 2015, Prince Andrew was named in court papers as part of a US civil case against Epstein.
Elizabeth Vos reviews the unsavory history of intelligence agencies providing protection to child sex-trafficking rings.
Jeffrey Epstein’s compound in the Virgin Islands. (YouTube)
By Elizabeth Vos Special to Consortium News
The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.
Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders’ cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms’ length for years.
“For almost two decades, for some nebulous reason, whether to do with ties to foreign intelligence, his billions of dollars, or his social connections, Epstein, whose alleged sexual sickness and horrific assaults on women without means or ability to protect themselves… remained untouchable,” journalist Vicky Ward wrote in The Daily Beast in July.
The protection of sex traffickers by intelligence agencies is especially interesting in the wake of Epstein’s death. Like others, Epstein had long been purported to have links with spy agencies. Such allegations documented by Whitney Webb in her multi-part series were recently published in Mintpress News.
Webb states that Epstein was the current face of an extensive system of abuse with ties to both organized crime and intelligence interests. She told CNLive! that: “According to Nigel Rosser, a British journalist who wrote in the Evening Standard in 2001, Epstein apparently for much of the 1990s claimed that he used to work for the CIA.”
Vicky Ward, who wrote on Epstein for Vanity Fair before his first arrest, and claimed the magazine killed one of her pieces after Epstein intervened with editor Graydon Carter, said in a Tweet that one of Epstein’s clients was Adnan Khashoggi, an arms dealer who was pivotal in the Iran Contra scandal and was on the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) payroll. This was also noted in a book “By Way of Deception” by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.
The Times of Israel reported that Epstein was an “active business partner with former prime minister Ehud Barak” until 2015, adding: “Barak formed a limited partnership company in Israel in 2015, called Sum (E.B.) to invest in a high-tech startup…. A large part of the money used by Sum to buy the start-up stock was supplied by Epstein.”
Webb wrote he “was a long-time friend of Barak, who has long-standing and deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community.” On the board of their company sat Pinchas Bukhris, a former commander of the IDF cyber unit 8200.
Epstein’s allegedly protected status was revealed by Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who gave Epstein an infamously lenient plea deal in 2007. Acosta, who was forced to resign as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary because of that deal, reportedly said of the case: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”
Alexander Acosta: “Told to leave it alone.” (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)
Kincora Boy’s Home
Several cases in the unsavory history linking intelligence agencies and sex scandals put the allegations against Epstein in context. Among these was the U.K. Kincora Boy’s Home, where at least 29 boys were reported to have been targeted at the Belfast, Northern Ireland, facility from the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, until it was shut in 1980. It also involved the alleged protection of child sexual abusers at the home and among their clients.
The Irish Times wrote that “destitute boys were systematically sodomised by members of Kincora staff and were supplied for abuse to prominent figures in unionist politics. The abusers – among them MPs, councillors, leading Orangemen and other influential individuals – became potentially important intelligence assets.”
The Belfast Telegraph also quoted former Labour Party MP Ken Livingstone, who said: “MI5 weren’t just aware of child abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home – they were monitoring it. They were getting pictures of a judge in one case, politicians, a lot of the establishment of Northern Ireland going in and abusing these boys.”
Three staff were eventually convicted of sexually abusing minors, which included the housemaster William McGrath, a loyalist “Orangeman” and allegedly an MI5 agent, according to the Belfast Telegraph in July 2014.
Kincora Boy’s Home. (YouTube)
Although the U.K.’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry ultimately found “no credible evidence” to support the allegations, two former U.K. intelligence officers maintained their claim of MI5’s involvement: Brian Gemmell says he alerted MI5 to the abuse at Kincora and was told to stop his investigation; and a former army intelligence officer, Colin Wallace, “consistently claimed that MI5, RUC special branch and military intelligence knew about the abuse at Kincora and used it to blackmail the pedophile ring to spy on hardline loyalists,” according to The Guardian.
The Irish outlet, An Phoblacht, wrote: “The systematic abuse of young boys in the Home and the part played by the British intelligence organisations to keep the scandal under wraps ensured that one side of the murky world of Unionist paramilitarism and its links to the crown forces was kept out of the public domain for years.”
In the U.S., the New York State Select Committee On Crime in 1982 investigated nationwide networks of trafficking underage sex workers and producing child pornography. Dale Smith, a committee investigator, noted that call services using minors also profited from “sidelines,” besides the income from peddling prostitution. Smith said they sold information “on the sexual proclivities of the clients to agents of foreign intelligence.” Presumably, this information could be used to blackmail those in positions of power. Smith added that one call service sold information to “British and Israeli intelligence.”
The Hayman Affair
Ken Livingstone “MI5 monitored abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home. (World Economic Forum)
Another U.K. scandal included allegations that Sir Peter Hayman, a British diplomat and deputy director of MI6, was a member of the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
Police discovered that two of the roughly dozen pedophiles in his circle had been writing to each other about their interest in “the extreme sexual torture and murder of children,” according to the The Daily Mail.
In 2015, The Guardian reported that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been “adamant that officials should not publicly name” Hayman, “even after she had been fully briefed on his activities….formerly secret papers released to the National Archives shows.”
Still, Hayman was unmasked as a subscriber to PIE in 1981 by M.P. Geoffrey Dickens, who also reportedly raised the national security risk of Hayman’s proclivities, implying they were a potential source of blackmail sought by intelligence agencies.
The British tabloid The Mirror reported that intelligence agencies, including the KGB and CIA, kept their own dossiers on U.K. establishment figures involved with PIE and the abuse of minors, to blackmail the targets in exchange for information.
Hayman was never charged for his association with PIE: The U.K. attorney general at the time, Sir Michael Havers, defended the decision and denied claims that Heyman was given special treatment.
Labour Party MP Barbara Castle allegedly gave a dossier she compiled on pedophiles in positions of power to U.K. journalist Don Hale in 1984 when he was editor of the Brury Messenger. Hale alleged that soon afterward, police from the “Special Branch, the division responsible for matters of national security,” raided his office and removed the Castle dossier. They then threatened him with a “D-notice,” which prevented him from publishing the story on the threat of up to 10 years in prison.
The Finders Cult
Another group accused of trafficking children, which had links to intelligence agencies, was the “Finders” cult. In 1987, The Washington Post reported that two members were arrested in connection with the alleged abuse of six children. Investigators found materials in Madison County, Virginia, which they said linked to a “commune called the Finders.”
Vauxhall Cross, London, headquarters of British Secret Intelligence Service.
(Laurie Nevay, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Besides nude photographs of children, a Customs Service memo written by special agent Ramon Martinez refers to files “relating to the activities of the organization in different parts of the world, including “London, Germany, the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Africa, Costa Rica, and Europe.”
Martinez’s memo notes that a Finders’ telex ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong. Another expressed interest in “bank secrecy situations.” The memo also documents high-tech transfers to the U.K., numerous properties under the Finders’ control, the group’s interest in terrorism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforcement.
Martinez describes the swift end to his investigation. He wrote that on April 2, 1987, he arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department and was told that all the data was turned over to the State Department which, in turn, advised MPD that “all travel and use of passports by the holders was within the law and no action would be taken. Then he was told that the investigation into the Finders had become a CIA internal matter. The MPD report was classified, not available for review” and “No further action will be taken.”
Martinez was not the only person with unanswered questions. The U.S.News & World Report wrote that N. Carolina Rep. Charlie Rose (Dem.), chair of the House Administration Committee, and Florida’s Rep. Tom Lewis (Rep.) asked “Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children? That’s what the evidence points to,” says Lewis, adding that “I can tell you that we’ve got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn’t be happening if there was nothing here.”
The leniency shown by the State Department and the fact that the CIA would designate the investigation of the Finders group as “an internal matter” raises serious questions. What motive might have driven the CIA to associate with or protect a child abuse ring?
Harry S. Truman State Department building. (Paco8191, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The Franklin Scandal
The Franklin Scandal erupted in 1988, centering on a child-trafficking ring operating in Omaha, Nebraska, by Lawrence E. King Jr., a former vice chairman of the National Black Republican Council: It was alleged that children were provided to politicians in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, among other illegal activities.
The late former state Sen. John Decamp alleged in his book “The Franklin Coverup” that a special committee of the Nebraska Legislature launched a probe to investigate the affair, which involved King being indicted for embezzling money from the Franklin Credit Union. The committee hired former Lincoln, Nebraska, police officer Jerry Lowe, whose reports suggested that King was involved in “guns and money transfers to Nicaragua,” and was linked with the CIA.
James Flanery, an investigative reporter at The World Herald who reported on the scandal, told associates that King was “running guns and money into Nicaragua,” and that the CIA was heavily involved.”
Like many scandals before and since, the Franklin case ended with no prosecution of the perpetrators. However, Paul Bonacci, one of the alleged victims, was indicted for perjury. He had alleged that he was sexually abused as a minor in Nebraska and around the country where he was flown by Lawrence King.
In 1999, the Omaha World Herald reported Bonacci was awarded $1 million in damages due to his lawsuit against King and other alleged perpetrators. Decamp, who was Bonacci’s attorney, told the newspaper “Obviously, you don’t award $1 million if you don’t think he (Bonacci) was telling the truth.”
Given the history of child trafficking rings that were allegedly connected with or enjoyed the protection of intelligence services, it is possible that similar claims about Jeffrey Epstein are something the authorities, though unlikely, should investigate.
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter and regular contributor to Consortium News.
If you value this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
Before commenting please read Robert Parry’s Comment Policy. Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed.
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55 comments for “Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies”
Zhu
August 30, 2019 at 03:10
Has anyone blamed space aliens yet? Or Trump? Or a guard seeking tevenge fir cheating his granny?
Paul
August 29, 2019 at 13:43
You’re rather candid when you say that the traffickers have ties to intelligence agencies.
In fact, the intelligence agencies actually run these child rape, sex trafficking and blackmail operations.
wilde
August 26, 2019 at 20:10
Wasn’t the Franklin scandal related to Boys Town connected with a religious organization. It it was also related to funding for the Iran Contra scandal perhaps a certain CIA director in the Order of Malta was connected to another form of financing that was going on to evade Congressional funding?
Charles Gillard
August 26, 2019 at 19:56
Wasn’t the Franklin scandal related to Boys Town? Doesn’t that have a religious affiliation which might be in line with Nicaragua and cross the path of a CIA director involved with the Order of Malta?
Barbara
August 26, 2019 at 15:20
The movie RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT explains how the sex slave trafficking works in the :US. It is frightening how easy it occurs. Until those in power stop looking the other way and are determined to stop this perversion it will never stop.
Abe
August 25, 2019 at 22:09
US and Israeli spy agency activities in the United States are by no means limited to sex trafficking.
Details about CIA and NSA surveillance activities conducted in the United States were revealed in the disclosure by Edward Snowden in June 2013.
A top-secret document provided by Snowden also revealed that the SIGINT National Unit of Israel routinely receives raw intelligence data (including those of U.S. citizens) from the NSA.
An agreement between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.
Billions of dollars per year are spent by US government agencies to purchase software systems, including intelligence programs developed by private companies with direct links to Israeli intelligence agencies such as cyber warfare Unit 8200, which is subordinate to the Israel Military Intelligence directorate.
In addition to enormous security risks embedded in US government tech platforms, commercial systems and software produced by Israeli companies linked to Israeli intelligence put US citizens at significant risk.
The political implications of these government and consumer tech security vulnerabilities are staggering.
The fact that Israeli intelligence agencies have been given the means to spy on American citizens is of major concern. Surveillance of US citizens by Israel, and the potential for political blackmail of US government officials by Israel, should prompt immediate investigation.
In addition, many pro-Israel Lobby organizations trying to influence US politics have direct links to Israeli government ministries, military, and intelligence agencies.
In 2016, Al Jareeza installed an undercover journalist inside several Washington–based pro-Israel Lobby propaganda organizations, including the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Stand With Us, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Israel on Campus Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America’s (ZOA) Fuel For Truth, and The Israel Project (TIP).
The Al Jareeza documentary series, “The Lobby – USA” exposed a covert war waged by the pro-Israel Lobby in America. News of the controversial documentary in October 2017 prompted efforts to censor its broadcast.
In February 2018, it was reported that Qatari leaders had reassured the leaders of Jewish American organisations that Al Jazeera would not be airing the documentary series on the Israel lobby in the United States.
According to Haaretz, the Qatari government had reportedly hired Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s former aide Nicolas Muzin to open communications channels with Jewish American organisations. Earlier, the network had sent letters to several American pro-Israel organisations informing them that their employees would appear in the documentary. These letters generated speculation that the Qatari government had reneged on its earlier promise to block Al Jazeera from screening the controversial documentary which, like the earlier British series, had utilized clandestine footage and recordings of pro-Israel Lobby propaganda activities.
In March 2018, a group of US lawmakers including Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, and Ted Cruz penned a letter urging United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate whether Al Jazeera should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They also urged the Justice Department to investigate reports that the network had infiltrated non-profit organisations and accused Al Jazeera of broadcasting “antisemitic”, “anti-Israel”, and “anti-American” content.
In April 2018, the Zionist Organization of America’s president Morton Klein claimed credit for lobbying the Qatari government not to screen Al Jazeera’s documentary series focusing on American pro-Israel Lobby.
In late August and early September 2018, leaked portions of the documentary series were aired by several outlets including The Electronic Intifada. In early November, The Electronic Intifada released the four episodes of “The Lobby – USA”.
Litchfield
August 26, 2019 at 14:02
Thanks for this overview of Israeli penetration of American intelligence software and agencies.
The USA and indeed the world is under siege by this flea (Israel) crawling up the Elephant’s butt (USA). And by regularly biting the USA the flea gets the elephant to flick its tail and thrash its trunk and charge, and the whole world is gored by the elephant with the flea on its butt.
How to get rid of this flea????
Auralee
August 25, 2019 at 21:01
Above all, I want to know who partook. Many are still in power, and still subject to blackmail.
jo6pac
August 25, 2019 at 18:56
Zhu
August 25, 2019 at 02:34
I don’t know newsbud but Mintpress is worth checking all the time.
Zhu
September 1, 2019 at 02:15
Well , Jo6Pac, I look at GODLIKEPRODUCTIONS every so often, but I don’t believe what I read there.
LAnon
August 25, 2019 at 15:35
Ye gads, Spike!
These are the excuses that the British establishment has used for years. Please stop.
Epstein, like Saville, was a predatory paedophile, he sought out vulnerable young people and groomed them.
He honed the skills of his vile trade for many decades, just how is a vulnerable young girl going to be able to resist such tactics?
Maybe research ‘grooming’ before attempting to water down these horrific crimes.
Larry Shea
August 25, 2019 at 12:17
Adnan Khashoggi was not only an arms dealer, he was also a money launderer and a cocaine kingpin who worked with and for the CIA. Please, see the article: “The Jeffrey Epstein Social Network & the Container Ship Crime Wave.” This excellent article can be found online at Daniel Hopsicker’s Madcow Productions. So, let’s see; Donald Barr was former OSS, William Barr (aka Robert Johnson) was CIA, Adnan Khashoggi was an asset of the CIA, and Jeffrey Epstein Epstein claimed that he worked for the CIA in the 90’s. Please, also see, “Creating a Crime: How the CIA Commandeered the DEA.” This article, which was written by Douglas Valentine for Counterpunch (counterpunch.org), was published on September 11, 2015. Dennis Dayle, who was the former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit made the following statement for the record: “In my thirty-year history in the Drug Enforcement Agency and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA.” The quote is from “Causes and Cures National Campaign on the Narcotics Epidemic: Final Report, (Washington, D.C., 1991) 9.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
August 25, 2019 at 10:30
Epstein’s private island was wired for video, literally everywhere, so that couples could not take off somewhere for a private get-together. If that doesn’t sound like an intelligence service’s elaborate “honey trap,” I don’t know what does.
Hard to see why Epstein and Company would record literally everyone, unless they were creating compromising material for potential blackmail or political pressure. Who would be interested in videos of a number homely, older men making love to young women, other than a blackmailer or a spy agency? But we have no evidence or even suggestion of blackmail. Many of Epstein’s big-shot friends remained his friends for many years, returning for visits again and again.
But there are suggestions, in the way his case was handled by prosecutors for his conviction in 2008 and the highly unorthodox sentencing he received, of some kind of powerful outside influence at work. There’s just no question about that. And, of course, his sentence allowed a complete return to the same arrangements he had had in New York to just continue on a private island, perhaps only adding a certain new sense of exotic adventure for visitors.
countykerry
August 27, 2019 at 18:21
“Who would be interested in videos of a number homely, older men making love to young women, other than a blackmailer.”
The older men were NOT making love ! None of this behavior had anything to do with love !
ML
August 27, 2019 at 21:07
Correct, countykerry. Mr. Chuckman also describes that “couples could not take off somewhere for a private get together”…. What? “Couples”? He must mean lecherous, ethically challenged fools taking advantage of disadvantaged, exploited teen girls. Geeezus. And yes, “making love” had nothing to do with this despicable child abuse. But you can’t shame the shameless… Thank you, countykerry, for being a good person and calling out this ridiculous misinterpretation. The moral bankruptcy of some commenters on these Epstein pieces is absolutely stunning.
Angus
August 25, 2019 at 08:30
They are the authorities. That’s precisely the problem.
polistra
August 25, 2019 at 08:01
It’s really automatic. Spy agencies recruit using blackmail, so their recruited members are going to have unfashionable and illegal habits. Spy agencies know a lot of secrets, so they have the material to engage in blackmail against leaders who try to subdue the agency. Vicious circle.
IMNAHA
August 29, 2019 at 15:14
These are called “control files” and most of the politicians in D.C. have one. The ones that don’t are at risk of being “Wellstoned” if they make waves. Nothing is as it seems when organized crime runs the show.
What I find interesting is the focus on Israel which is far from guiltless, but remember until recently the age of consent in Vatican City was 13 and the Brits, well everyone knows the aristocracy’s perverted appetites. There’s a common (evil) thread that runs throughout these (and other) groups that no one (except David Icke) ever tugs on. Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil…
Emma Peele
August 25, 2019 at 02:27
Why did Clinton’s help a child trafficking operation in Haiti?
And slavery is back in Libya?
Epstein?
What better way to get access to kids than war?
Where is # MeToo?……crickets
CitizenOne
August 24, 2019 at 23:03
Well researched article on one of the key tactics that intelligence uses to blackmail their targets they want to neutralize or hold a sword over their heads. Not only that but it does not nor does it always involve children. Adults that are tools for anyone trying to gain control over another person often use seduction and illicit sex as blackmail when the target is confronted with evidence that the relationship is known about and that the details of it if revealed would tarnish and perhaps severely damage the reputation of the targeted individual. It is a tool used by not just intelligence agencies but also the mob and any underhanded organization that hits below the belt.
That was the strategy of the FBI and its attempts to control MLK. They wiretapped his telephone, bugged his hotel rooms and eventually got a sex tape. When nobody in the press would publish it without sources that the FBI was unwilling to disclose they mailed the tape with a suicide note to MLK saying he would be destroyed by the tape and rather than facing his impending character assassination he should consider suicide to preserve his honor and legacy.
The FBI told MLK to kill himself.
On April 3 1968 MLK delivered his last speech. Part of that speech was an open recognition of the ruthless forces that tried to convince him he should kill himself rather than be shamed by sexual indiscretions. In the speech he said the following, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”
The next day April 4th he was assassinated. The rest of the history of that crime is also mired in controversy. James Earl Ray was arrested and convicted but tried many times from jail to change his plea to innocent. His requests for a trial were never granted and he died in prison. The King family believes that MLKs death was at the hands of the government to this day.
Is it not feasible that the FBI upon failing to convince MLK to commit suicide would take matters into their own hands?
The whole unraveling of events begins with information obtained by wiretapping and bugging that King had committed illicit sex acts. The attempts to derail King and end his career or in the end his life stemmed from the initial dirt the FBI had on him about sex.
Initially Hoover approached Bobby Kennedy with his demands that Bobby Kennedy should authorize the wiretapping and bugging of King, which as Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy could do. He initially refused Hoover’s demands until Hoover produced evidence of JFK’s sexual improprieties and threatened to go public with the information in his possession. Upon examining the evidence and fearing the damage it could do to the presidency, he changed his mind and begrudgingly authorized the FBI to use whatever spy technology they had to eavesdrop on every private conversation MLK had.
MLK was assassinated April 4th 1968 and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated June 8th 1968 two months later. Mopping up operations for those who knew too much.
The point is that sex has been used as a tool by the powerful since the beginning of time as a way to completely control individuals over allegations of sexual impropriety. It is one of the most powerful means to control others and to get them to bend to ones will as are many blackmail situations.
Given what we know of history, there is motive and opportunity for those who would like to see a compromised and vulnerable Jeffery Epstein’s voice silenced as he was one who knew too much about the methods used by powerful people in high places to exercise control over others.
That is why his activities were allowed for so many years and also why he is now dead.
Gregory Herr
August 25, 2019 at 01:03
I recommend William Pepper’s research on the MLK assassination.
Bob Van Noy
August 25, 2019 at 09:59
For what it’s worth, from Elizabeth Vos’ article to Citizen One’s comment and now your excellent links Gregory Herr, this is the reason that Consortiumnews has become the indispensable site for news and commentary. Many thanks to all…
Cool Indian
August 26, 2019 at 18:40
J J Chicago was the FBI’s homeboy in MLK’s org.
Sally Mitcheell
August 24, 2019 at 19:49
Monsters in suits they are the chosen ones and they can make their fantasies into reality that allow abuse to happen on any unfortunate child they want their sickness to choose. .We certainly do have a problem with mental illness in the world This is what the sick in power have become and the rest of us are too busy struggling for survival to want to know or believe or care. The disinterest is heartbreaking.we must mass socially to help human nature turn this behaviour around. Thank you for making me to never forget
Doc
August 25, 2019 at 12:21
Beautifully and cogently expressed, and right on target.
Please, blog more posts with this perspective – the People need your insight.
Spike
August 24, 2019 at 18:16
This is an astonishing piece. If true, that actual pedophilia — the sexual molestation of children who have not yet reached puberty — is so common that it involves stunning numbers of people in high positions, then the world is an even worse place than I thought it was.
But what has mostly been going through my mind these past few weeks is how taboos on behaviors that really should not be so taboo have been used over the decades to extort, blackmail and hold in check powerful figures. J. Edgar Hoover’s famous files that presumably noted adultery and homosexuality were used to hold and increase Hoover’s power, and yet he couldn’t touch the Mafia because they had evidence of Hoover’s own homosexual activity. So the cost to society has been considerable.
It is not accurate to describe Epstein as a pedophile. Those girls were teenagers, reproductively viable young adults. Need I say that when the entire history of the human race is considered, most people were born to adolescents, because the luxury did not yet exist of living beyond the age of 20 or 30, so if one wanted to procreate, one had to do it early. Civilization has brought with it an extended period of preparation for adulthood, but that has not changed human physiology or delayed the onset of sexual behavior. It has only been since the 1980s that this fierce taboo against sex with teenagers has been a part of cultural hysteria.
I, along with everyone else in the general public, have only the vaguest knowledge of what transpired within the residences of Jeffrey Epstein. But it sounds like these girls were paid generously for their services and they kept coming back week after week. I think I read that one girl said she had been raped by Epstein twenty times. Did she not, after the first ‘rape’, go home to her parents, where she was presumably housed, fed, and clothed, where she did not tell her parents what happened, and then the next week returned to chez Epstein a second time, and then a third, and so forth? If that was the case, then every episode after the first was not a rape, which means that the first episode was not a rape also.
Every sanctimonious hypocrite who refers to the infamous Epstein parties as ‘sex trafficking’ ‘pedophilia’ should admit that, barring the need for discipline to avoid cheating on one’s wife or to protect an elite reputation, they would have been happy to be given a consenting teenage girl as a party favor.
The point being made is that were there not this regressive cultural hysteria against teen sex then this whole mess, with it’s likely extortions, would not have happened. There is a price society pays for this, and it’s quite a bit more than just the death of one unscrupulous billionaire.
Alan Ross
August 25, 2019 at 09:23
“…should admit that, barring the need for discipline to avoid cheating on one’s wife or to protect an elite reputation, they would have been happy to be given a consenting teenage girl as a party favor.”
I think many men would have reservations about having sex with 13 year old girls. Just because, at an earlier time in civilization it might have been necessary to procreate by having sex with very young women does not justify it now. Does the reservation have to do with the fact that 13 year-olds do not have fully developed personalities? Our criminal justice systems are beginning to recognize that young men and women under 18 are not really adults.
ML
August 25, 2019 at 12:07
Thank you, Alan Ross. I have made similar comments several times in the reply sections of these articles. Thearche begins before menarche, often a couple years or more before menarche. It can begin at 8, 9, or 10. That is puberty- therache followed by menarche. Children’s bodies are not completely matured enough at the young end of the teen years to have sex. And of course, their minds, their judgement, their ability to see through deceit is extremely compromised at young ages. That’s why teens are generally so dangerous behind the wheel of a car- lack of good judgment. The brain is still developing. When you add in the poverty some of these kids experienced and the promises of money, clothing, food, you get exploitation which people like “Spike” don’t seem to see. Any person who thinks like he does isn’t safe around children- be they 7 or 17.
Litchfield
August 26, 2019 at 14:21
And their bodies, too, are not yet mature. Sexual maturity is not the only marker of adult physique. Just one little example:
“About 95% of a young woman’s peak bone mass is present by age 20, and some overall gains in mass often continue until age 30. The average boy has his fastest rate of growth in height between ages 13 and 14, and stops growing between ages 17 and 18.”
A girl of 13 may be menstruating, but that doesn’t mean that her physique is up to the strains of pregnancy and childbirth, not to mention producing a healthy foetus. Or breast-feeding an infant. That is before we even talk about her ability to care for and take responsibility for an infant.
The puberty argument has some validity for sexual experimentation with same-age kids—they are starting to get interested in sex, so that is a normal marker—but is not an excuse for adult men to be fooling with emotionally immature but also probably physically immature girls. Or boys, for that matter.
Herman
August 26, 2019 at 12:52
Spike, you are not alone and that is scary. Your words:
“Every sanctimonious hypocrite who refers to the infamous Epstein parties as ‘sex trafficking’ ‘pedophilia’ should admit that, barring the need for discipline to avoid cheating on one’s wife or to protect an elite reputation, they would have been happy to be given a consenting teenage girl as a party favor.”
Sanctimonious hypocrite? Party favor?
Epstein was a pervert and a pimp at the least.
Cheyenne
August 26, 2019 at 12:58
It’s not sex, it’s assault.
These girls are at risk for more than ‘just’ rape. Sick perverts fantasize about power over the vulnerable. What is the ultimate ‘power over’?
Torture and murder.
Spike basically gives these monsters a free pass AND equates adultery and homosexuality to the rape, torture and murder of minors.
L:arry Shea
August 24, 2019 at 17:22
Please, follow up by reading the well-researched article: “CIA Covert Operative William Barr Nominated by Trump for Attorney General. His Role in the Iran Contra Affair.” Also do a Google search on William Barr/Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson was reputed to be a codename that Barr used while he was working for V.P., George H.W. Bush in the 80’s
Lefthanded Hammer
August 24, 2019 at 15:40
Tnx CN, Whitney… Re: Epstein Complications
AtLast… USS Liberty explained… Tnx yall
Robert Mayer
August 24, 2019 at 15:36
Tnx CN, Whitney… Re: Epstein complications: ATLAST… USSLiberty explained!
Elizabeth HELEN
August 24, 2019 at 14:43
CIA out of control, even according to Colby JFK… If MK ULRTA had really ever stopped maybe they would of said sorry or explained themselves before their deaths, With all the facilities available to intelligence services all this organized crime could be “solved” but what if the intelligence agencies are the criminals? You can research for years but how much evidence does anyone need, just look at it.
Raymond Comeau
August 26, 2019 at 11:46
You are exactly correct. The Intelligence agencies are the chief criminals who protect Deep State.
Taras77
August 24, 2019 at 14:16
This is an excellent article.
The author mentions Whitney Webb and her excellent series on Mint Press; here is the last of a four part serious:
Very long but well worth the read; as is well known, Bill clinton (slick) is up to his eyeballs in mena drug traffic, etc.
Also, to state the obvious, current AG Barr does not come off as a leading charger on a white horse for justice and accountability during his previous stint as AG under bush I. Could cause some to link to reasons for long delay of doj in releasing fbi,doj files, now over 90 days since trump gave the go ahead to release.
Amanda
August 24, 2019 at 12:38
Excellent article. Yes, this seems to be standard operating procedure and how our politicians are controlled behind the scenes.
Amanda
August 24, 2019 at 12:55
Oops, meant to say “standard operating procedure for the intelligence agencies”
homer
August 24, 2019 at 11:05
You seemed to leave off quite a few names that are important to this piece one being, Jimmy Savile.
michael
August 24, 2019 at 08:27
The naive days of Joe McCarthy and the Lavender Scare are long over. Homosexuality and marital affairs no longer serve as effective blackmail materials, replaced by the leverage of filmed pedophilia, and torture and killing of sex objects.
Whitney Webb’s coverage both historical through Epstein shows what America, or at least, its Intelligence Agencies have become, closely invested in the Mafia and Israel, as well as our financiers and politicians. Her last in her Epstein coverage: https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-rel ationship/261455/
Zhu
August 24, 2019 at 03:25
A lot of “alleged” and “it is possible” here.
Esteleen
August 24, 2019 at 01:30
I will never clap for another politician as long as I live. Not a single politician has stood up for Epstein’s child rape victims and Alexander Acosta’s excuse to defend Epstein’s victims confirms that our criminal justice system turns the other way for pedophiles or anyone as long as they have lots of money or power. Meanwhile, our own government spies on law-abiding citizens. Our laws no longer protect whistle-blowers or law-abiding dissent especially when we have military police and criminal intelligence agencies that operate without civilian oversight. God help us save ourselves from ourselves. “Try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering”. Julian Assange
bardamu
August 23, 2019 at 23:29
Fine article.
Given that “intelligence” agencies with no functional oversight and regularly involved in black ops use these things, and that a fresh use surfaces every few years, it seems parsimonious to conclude that they are a regular part of some subsection of intelligence community and, by extension, government operation. It makes little sense that this sort of of business is forever starting and stopping: that would be difficult to do.
Given that neither of the two major US parties have shown any interest in pursuing such connections, it seems clear that neither see any political advantage in pursuing it. A parsimonious conclusion is that at least some powerful members of media and both parties are involved, and that the connections are enough of an open secret that people know not to pursue it.
By extension, do we avoid the conclusion that this is in some way a mafia-run government?
caseyf5
August 24, 2019 at 07:53
Hello bardamu, Instead of a “mafia-run government” I would like to suggest a Columbian Drug Cartel government or some other sinister, more evil, group or groups.
Arby
August 24, 2019 at 19:45
Well, Criminal is criminal. No organization can match the war-making State for criminality. As long as that’s clear, make any comparison you like. The war-making State is a terror organization and, as such, it’s not going to shock us when we find it involved in widespread abuse of children or anything criminal. War, then, isn’t alone the health of the State (Randolph Bourne.) Any darkness you may wish to think of will be found committed by the State and its worshippers. This is the thought behind the expression that aggression of one State toward another (par for the course with the United States) is the supreme crime, including within that crime all others.
Edward Herman’s thoughts about terrorism:
=== =
The really massive and significant growth of terrorism since World War II has been that carried out by states… Contrary to [Claire] Sterling’s foolish remark about the “colossal” armaments of retail terrorists, state military resources are vastly larger… State terrorism is also much more important than non-state violence because it is rooted in relatively permanent structures that allow terror to be institutionalized….” -pg 83 of “The Real Terror Network” by Edward Herman
= ===
Substitute “child abuse” for “terrorism” in the above quote and you’ll find that it works. Is the ‘institutionalization’ of child abuse not what we are seeing here?
John Wright
August 25, 2019 at 16:43
The Deep State is simply an international mafia of smaller mafias, the center of which is the international banking cabal. While their various alliances may shift over time, their primary interest, to remain in power, stays the same.
The vast global Ponzi scam that is international banking has swelled to its bursting point and the current chapter of that fraud needs to be closed and restarted. Much of what we are now seeing are the end games of the various mafias scrambling for the best positions as this round of the game comes to a close.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the consent of the mostly ignorant masses.
Most people just don’t want to know.
JoAnne
August 26, 2019 at 19:25
Yes. And apparently the locus of control has shifted from the US to Israel via the Russian Jewish mafia.
My conclusions about this, as a graduate in anthropology, human ecology and counseling psychology–supplemented with some sociobiology and neuropsychology–is that our predatory instinctual behaviors have outstripped those for care-giving. Combined with instinctual formation of social dominance hierarchies in addition to “mobbing” (otherwise known as “group think” or mass hysteria, peer-pressure, etc.), we have created some real mean mfs that have seized control of most cultures, resulting in institutionalized predation and a “predator paradox ” of self-destruction. Those cultures that have maintained better control of violent aggression, exploitation are at a competitive disadvantage in their conscientious cooperation.
Well, my point is, the tragedy has an evolutionary, neurobiological, medical/public health dimension that should not continue to be overlooked and uninvestigated. Although it is probably too late for most of us, there will be a few visionary leaders who will institutionalize compassion and eco wisdom on a small, local scale. Gangster free. First we have to admit we are not as intelligent and ethical as we want to believe as a species. We’ve done great things, but we also produce psychopaths, “minions” and a majority of intimidated, confused, denial prone, oblivious “subjects”.
Herman
August 27, 2019 at 02:15
JoAnne, great comment. I am often lost when arcane stuff appears but your comment makes sense to me. I take your remarks to be about good and evil and how when a society dismisses values taught over the centuries, it unties the moorings that a functioning society needs. You don’t have to be religious to see the importance of the Ten Commandments which other religions may state in a slightly different way.
Larry Shea
August 23, 2019 at 18:21
Yup, Check out former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert. See the video clip on NewsBud, “The Hastert Scandal: What the Media Isn’t Telling You.” The title of the piece is, The People’s Campaign: The Real Hastert Case All in One Place. The above-mentioned video clip can be accessed within this article. More elite deviance!
I’ve also heard Cynthia McKinney reference blackmail files.
Luther Bliss
August 28, 2019 at 14:16
You mean John Dennis Hastert the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in history (1999-2007).
To Repeat: The longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in history was a serial pedophile who had been entrapped by Turkish intelligence.
One more time: Between the vital years of 1999 to 2007, the top House Republican was “epsteined”
Once more, in case this is the first time you’ve even heard his name: Dennis HASTERT.
Arby
August 24, 2019 at 19:47
Newsbud? I’ll pass.
Zhu
August 25, 2019 at 02:34
What’s wrong with newsbud? Please tell all! I’ve never heard of them before. Nor Mintpress, for that matter. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The Prince of Wales was said to be incensed not only by the content of the interview but the timing - as it clashed with Charles’ 12-day tour to India, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands this week and broke a long-standing tradition that one royal does not upstage another. Charles’ royal visit was intended to focus on environmental issues close to the Prince’s heart bit it was massively overshadowed by Prince Andrew’s now-notorious Newsnight interview and the backlash that followed.
The painful blow Queen dealt Prince Andrew in wake of royal retreat
Royal outrage: Prince William reveals true feelings on Prince Andrew
The Prince of Wales has remained tight-lipped throughout the tour, part of it carried out with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, over the Epstein scandal.
But it is understood Charles is gearing up for a showdown with his brother and is determined to get a grip on the situation once back to the UK to avoid any further fallout.
This comes after a Buckingham Palace source told the Mirror Prince Charles "will be having stern words" with Andrew upon his return from the tour.
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The source claimed: “The Queen has told Andrew he has her support but it is clear his brother Charles will be having stern words with him when he gets home.
prince charles prince andrew bbc interview epstein scandal royal family news
Prince Charles is expected to confront his brother Prince Andrew when he returns from his overseas tour (Image: GETTY)
prince charles prince andrew bbc interview epstein scandal royal family news
Prince Andrew's interview with Emily Maitlis aired on November 16 (Image: GETTY)
“Her very public show of support is a clear indication she has forgiven him but he has been ordered to keep in line. The inquests have already begun inside the Palace.
“Charles will demand to know how on earth this could have been allowed to happen, who was advising Andrew and why he was not consulted about his decision to go ahead with the interview.
“He has been ordered to step back from royal life until he has unequivocally cleared his name or the Epstein case is over, which could be years. The road to redemption might not only be long, it could be completely blocked off.”
READ MORE: Prince Andrew passes the baton to Eugenie and Beatrice
prince charles prince andrew bbc interview epstein scandal royal family news
The Queen and Prince Andrew were spotted horse riding on Friday (Image: REUTERS)
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Prince Andrew’s link to the scandal is not going away any time soon.
The BBC is scheduled to broadcast an interview with Virginia Roberts, who claims to have been trafficked for sex, in December.
Following the disastrous interview aired on November 16, in which Andrew failed to express sympathy for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s victims or regret over their friendship, the Prince announced he was temporarily stepping down from public duties.
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Prince Charles and Camilla toured New Zealand last week (Image: GETTY)
prince charles prince andrew bbc interview epstein scandal royal family news
Prince Charles leaving the Solomon Islands this morning (Image: GETTY)
In recent days, as a growing number of companies said they would review their support to the Duke’s charities and organisations, Prince Andrew also stepped back from most of his patronages to avoid collateral damage.
While he will remain the patron of most organisations he has been supporting throughout the years, he will be taking no active part in them for the time being.
And, despite Buckingham Palace announcing last week the Duke would have continued to work on Pitch@Palace, his entrepreneurship scheme, it has been claimed Prince Andrew is also to cease any involvement in it.
This comes after 10 of the 35 companies backing the scheme withdrew their support and others announced they were reviewing it at the end of the year.
prince charles prince andrew bbc interview epstein scandal royal family news
Royal men and their military service (Image: EXPRESS)
Among the businesses who pulled out, there were KPMG, Standard Chartered and Bosch.
Prince Andrew, widely believed to be the Queen’s favourite child, was spotted horse riding with his mother on Friday on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
This outing was first seen as a show of unity and support.
However, the monarch is believed to have cancelled the lavish celebrations planned for Prince Andrew’s birthday, who turns 60 next February, The Times wrote.
Prince Andrew
Buckingham Palace said last week Prince Andrew will continue to work on Pitch@Palace (Image: GETTY)
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Instead of throwing a party for Andrew, the Queen will host a small family dinner, the newspaper added.
The Epstein scandal could further worsen the relationship between the two brothers, believed to have been under strain since 2012, after Prince Charles announced his desire once King to slim down monarchy.
His intentions were made clear during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, when wider members of the Royal Family were excluded from the symbolic appearance on the iconic Buckingham Palace balcony.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:12 pm Post subject:
Looks like cheeky Ghislaine Maxwell will be fighting claims she was a sex trafficker in court...
Ghislaine Maxwell revealed how she hired women to massage paedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his home 'at least once a day' - and admits she KNEW Prince Andrew sex accuser Virginia Roberts was only 17, in newly released court papers
Ms Maxwell, 57, told a court of her life as sex abuser Epstein's right-hand woman
In her role managing the businessman's six houses, she said she hired an array of staff including cooks, cleaners, gardeners and architects
Part of her job, she said was to recruit women to massage the 66-year-old paedophile in his home where he often had a rub down once a day
Ms Maxwell is accused of procuring young girls for Epstein to have sex with, a claim she denies
She spoke in a defamation case in New York brought by Virginia Roberts whom Ms Maxwell accused of lying over sex with Epstein and Prince Andrew
By PAUL THOMPSON FOR MAILONLINE
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7730407/Ghislaine-Maxwell-rev eals-time-hired-women-massage-Jeffrey-Epstein.html
PUBLISHED: 09:03, 27 November 2019 | UPDATED: 17:34, 27 November 2019
Ghislaine Maxwell has revealed for the first time how she recruited women to massage billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his home 'at least once a day'.
In newly released court papers, the socialite, who introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew, told how she managed Epstein's six houses around the world and hired 'lots of people' – but denied procuring young girls for him to have sex with.
Ms Maxwell said she knew Andrew's sex-accuser Ms Roberts was 17 when she started massaging Epstein, but said her account about abuse she claims she suffered at the hands of the royal and his paedophile friend was a lie.
Ms Maxwell has rarely been seen in public since Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. They're seen together in 2005 +13
Ghislaine Maxwell has spoken for the first time about her extraordinary relationship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein where she managed his life as his right-hand woman
Ms Maxwell tells how she recruited women to massage Epstein at his home at least once a day, sometimes more, as she also hired gardeners, pilots, chefs in her role for him +13
Ms Maxwell tells how she recruited women to massage Epstein at his home at least once a day, sometimes more, as she also hired gardeners, pilots, chefs in her role for him
Ms Maxwell, pictured at Epstein's Caribbean home, spoke in a libel case in New York after being sued by Ms Roberts for calling her a liar in the claims she had made about Epstein +13
Ms Maxwell, pictured at Epstein's Caribbean home, spoke in a libel case in New York after being sued by Ms Roberts for calling her a liar in the claims she had made about Epstein
Pictures from inside Epstein's Caribbean home home show four poster beds covered with mosquito nets in the property where Ms Roberts also said she and Prince Andrew had sex, a claim strenuously denied by the Duke of York +13
Pictures from inside Epstein's Caribbean home home show four poster beds covered with mosquito nets in the property where Ms Roberts also said she and Prince Andrew had sex, a claim strenuously denied by the Duke of York
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In her video statement to a New York court in a libel action brought by Ms Roberts, Ms Maxwell outlined her role for the disgraced businessman.
'My job included hiring many people. There were six homes,' she said.
'I hired assistants, architects, decorators, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, pool people, pilots. I hired all sorts of people.'
Ms Maxwell is accused of procuring young girls for sex with Epstein, which she denies +13
Ms Maxwell is accused of procuring young girls for sex with Epstein, which she denies
'A very small part of my job was to find adult professional massage therapists for Jeffrey,' she said.
'From time to time I would visit professional spas. I would receive a massage and if it was good I would ask them if they did home visits.'
In her evidence Ms Maxwell admitted knowing Ms Roberts was just 17 years old when she began giving massages to Epstein at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
Asked how often the teenager would massage Epstein, she said: 'It's important to understand that I wasn't with Jeffrey all the time.
'In fact, I was only in the house less than half the time, so I cannot testify to when I wasn't there how often she came.
'What I can say is that I barely would remember her, if not for all of this rubbish.
'I probably wouldn't remember her at all, except that she came from time to time. But I don't recollect her coming as often as she portrayed herself.'
Ms Maxwell gave evidence at the defamation hearing with Ms Roberts in 2017.
Ms Roberts was suing her over her claims that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and the Duke of York.
The socialite, pictured with Epstein, Donald Trump and his wife Melania, spoke at a defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts after Ms Roberts' claims about being abused by Epstein +13
The socialite, pictured with Epstein, Donald Trump and his wife Melania, spoke at a defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts after Ms Roberts' claims about being abused by Epstein
Prince Andrew has been criticised for his lack of judgement over his friendship with Epstein as the pair were pictured taking a stroll together in New York during the Duke's four day visit +13
Prince Andrew has been criticised for his lack of judgement over his friendship with Epstein as the pair were pictured taking a stroll together in New York during the Duke's four day visit
Ms Maxwell reached agreement with the teenager in an out of court settlement and applied to have the interviews sealed.
But after Epstein's arrest on sex trafficking charges in July an appeal court ruled the evidence could be released.
Extracts from her statement were unsealed on August 9, the day before the billionaire was found dead in his cell from an apparent suicide.
Asked how many times Epstein would get a massage she added: 'When I was at the house he received a massage on average once a day.'
Witnesses have told police that Ms Maxwell acted as Epstein's 'fixer' and recruited underage girls for him. It is also alleged that she took part in the sex abuse, claims she denies.
When asked if Epstein sexually abused minors, she replied: 'I can only testify to what I know. I know that Virginia is a liar and I know what she testified is a lie.
'So I can only testify to what I know to be a falsehood and half those falsehoods are enormous so I categorically deny everything she said.'
Ms claims she was groomed by Epstein after she starting working for him as a masseuse when she was 17 +13
Ms Roberts also alleges that she had sex with Prince Andrew three times in three countries in 2001 +13
Virginia Roberts claims she was groomed by Epstein and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was 17 in 2001 - once in Ms Maxwell's Belgravia home
Since working for Epstein as a masseuse, Ms Roberts has moved to Australia and married her husband of 16 years Robert Giuffre (above) and lives quietly in Cairns with their two children +13
Since working for Epstein as a masseuse, Ms Roberts has moved to Australia and married her husband of 16 years Robert Giuffre (above) and lives quietly in Cairns with their two children
At one point Ms Maxwell became so angry she banged her hand on the table in fury and went on: 'I can only go on what I know. What I know is a falsehood based on what Virginia said. Everything Virginia has said is an absolute lie, which is why we are here in this room.
'What we can all agree at this point, there is not one person in this room, however much you would like her to be younger, who can say she was not 17.
'So she was 17. At 17 you are allowed to be a professional masseuse. There is nothing inappropriate about her coming at that time to give a massage.'
Ms Maxwell insisted she 'barely knew' Ms Roberts despite overwhelming evidence to suggest the women had seen each other on a number of occasions.
The teenager was standing next to Ms Maxwell when she posed with Andrew on the upstairs landing at her Belgravia home in a now notorious photo taken in 2000.
Epstein, pictured at his luxury 75-acre estate, dubbed 'pedophile island', was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide on August 9 this year as he awaited trial on child sex charges +13
Epstein, pictured at his luxury 75-acre estate, dubbed 'pedophile island', was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide on August 9 this year as he awaited trial on child sex charges
A group of women are pictured on Epstein's private island Little Saint James, based off the coast of St. Thomas, where Chauntae Davies (above) among others said Epstein raped her +13
A group of women are pictured on Epstein's private island Little Saint James, based off the coast of St. Thomas, where Chauntae Davies (above) among others said Epstein raped her
And flight documents show that the two women had also flown together on Epstein's private jet – nicknamed 'The Lolita Express' – no fewer than 23 times.
Ms Maxwell denied being involved in any sex abuse, adding: 'I have never participated at any time with Virginia in a massage with Jeffrey. I have been absolutely appalled by her story.'
Ms Roberts has said Ms Maxwell should be arrested and that Andrew belongs in jail over the scandal.
She alleged she was a trafficking victim of Epstein, who coerced her into having sex with the Duke three times in 2001 - once at Ms Maxwell's London home, once in New York and then a final time on Epstein's private estate in the Caribbean.
The Duke strenuously denies her claims.
Jeffrey Epstein's 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell is 'sex obsessed' and has found a new boyfriend, friend reveals
Laura Goldman said Ms Maxwell's 'super power' was her ability to attract men
Said she was 'sex-obsessed' and often spoke about oral sex techniques in public
Ms Maxwell denies procuring underage girls of Epstein at his numerous houses
By RORY TINGLE FOR MAILONLINE
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7731657/Jeffrey-Epsteins-mada m-Ghislaine-Maxwell-new-boyfriend-friend-reveals.html
PUBLISHED: 15:50, 27 November 2019 | UPDATED: 16:37, 27 November 2019
Jeffrey Epstein's 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell has found a new boyfriend, a former friend revealed today.
Laura Goldman, who knows Ms Maxwell's sister Isabel, said the 57-year-old - who is accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein - had a 'super power' when it came to attracting men.
She also called the socialite 'sex-obsessed' and claimed she regularly discussed oral sex techniques in public.
Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein, is 'sex-obsessed' and regularly discusses oral sex techniques in public, it is claimed
Ms Goldman told Sun Online: 'I've heard that Ghislaine has a new boyfriend. One of her talents if finding a man to take care of her.
'She's good at that. It's like a super power. Her super power is she finds men to take care of her...
'But I get her appeal to guys. All she ever talked about was "sex, sex, sex".'
Ms Maxwell was previously linked to tech CEO Scott Borgerson, 43, who abandoned his wife and young children to be with her, Dailymail.com revealed.
'Scott left his wife for Ghislaine around five years ago. It's just egregious what's happened to Rebecca,' the source, who asked for anonymity, said in August.
'Rebecca and Scott seemed like a really nice couple. But as time went on, he was very preoccupied and would be on his cell phone a lot, presumably on business calls. He was away a lot for work.'
Ms Maxwell has rarely been seen in public since Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. They're seen together in 2005 +8
Ms Maxwell has rarely been seen in public since Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. They're seen together in 2005
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
In court papers published this week, she revealed for the first time how she recruited women to massage Epstein at his home 'at least once a day'.
Ms Maxwell, who introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew, told how she managed Epstein's six houses around the world and hired 'lots of people' – but denied procuring young girls for him to have sex with.
Ms Maxwell said she knew Andrew's sex-accuser Ms Roberts was 17 when she started massaging Epstein, but said her account about abuse she claims she suffered at the hands of the royal and his paedophile friend was a lie.
In her video statement to a New York court in a libel action brought by Ms Roberts, Ms Maxwell outlined her role for the disgraced businessman.
Epstein was awaiting trial on sex charges when he was found dead +8
Epstein was awaiting trial on sex charges when he was found dead
'My job included hiring many people. There were six homes,' she said. 'I hired assistants, architects, decorators, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, pool people, pilots. I hired all sorts of people.'
'A very small part of my job was to find adult professional massage therapists for Jeffrey,' she said.
'From time to time I would visit professional spas. I would receive a massage and if it was good I would ask them if they did home visits.'
In her evidence Ms Maxwell admitted knowing Ms Roberts was just 17 years old when she began giving massages to Epstein at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
Asked how often the teenager would massage Epstein, she said: 'It's important to understand that I wasn't with Jeffrey all the time.
'In fact, I was only in the house less than half the time, so I cannot testify to when I wasn't there how often she came.
'What I can say is that I barely would remember her, if not for all of this rubbish.
'I probably wouldn't remember her at all, except that she came from time to time. But I don't recollect her coming as often as she portrayed herself.'
Ms Maxwell gave evidence at the defamation hearing with Ms Roberts in 2017.
Ms Roberts was suing her over her claims that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and the Duke of York.
How Ghislaine Maxwell stole fourteen-years-younger millionaire tech CEO Scott Borgerson away from his wife and two young kids, moved into his seaside mansion and stayed under the radar until Jeffrey Epstein's arrest
Louis Boyle in Boston, Massachusetts for Dailymail.com
Ghislaine Maxwell's one-time boyfriend abandoned his wife and young children for Jeffrey Epstein's suspected madam five years ago, DailyMail.com learned exclusively in August.
Scott Borgerson, 43, the CEO of a tech company, left his wife, Rebecca, and two young children for 57-year-old Maxwell, a source close to the family told DailyMail.com.
'Scott left his wife for Ghislaine around five years ago. It's just egregious what's happened to Rebecca,' the source, who asked for anonymity, told DailyMail.com.
'Rebecca and Scott seemed like a really nice couple. But as time went on, he was very preoccupied and would be on his cell phone a lot, presumably on business calls. He was away a lot for work.'
When the marriage finally crumbled in 2014, divorce records paint a disturbing picture of Borgerson, with accusations of him being physically violent, abusive, 'extremely controlling' and having an alcohol problem.
Borgerson, who married Rebecca in Palm Beach, Florida, in May 2001, once allegedly threatened her, saying: 'Don't make me beat you in front of the children.'
Ghislaine Maxwell's boyfriend Scott Borgerson abandoned his wife and children for Jeffrey Epstein's suspected madam, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Maxwell is alleged to be one of the main players in a network of recruiters and enablers who provided Epstein with underage girls to sexually abuse +8
Ghislaine Maxwell's boyfriend Scott Borgerson abandoned his wife and children for Jeffrey Epstein's suspected madam, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Maxwell is alleged to be one of the main players in a network of recruiters and enablers who provided Epstein with underage girls to sexually abuse
Borgerson's shipping technology firm, Cargometrics, was valued at more than $100 million in 2016, according to the Financial Times.
Borgerson is believed to have met Maxwell five years ago through speaking engagements connected to ocean preservation, a subject on which they share a passion. They both are pictured speaking at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in 2014.
Maxwell shut down her ocean charity, the TerraMar Project, a week after Epstein was arrested in July.
Around 2015, Borgerson told Rebecca he was going to London on business and he would send videos.
Borgerson, 43, the CEO of a tech company, left his wife, Rebecca, for the 57-year-old five years ago, a source close to the family said. +8
The marriage fell apart when Borgerson sent Rebecca a video of himself in Miami with Ghislaine, and the two were 'hugging and kissing' +8
The marriage fell apart when Borgerson sent Rebecca (left and right) a video of himself in Miami with Ghislaine, and the two were 'hugging and kissing', a close family source told DailyMail.com. Borgerson, who married Rebecca in Palm Beach, Florida, in May 2001, once allegedly threatened her, saying: 'Don't make me beat you in front of the children'
'Rebecca watched a video of him and although he said he was going to be in London, he was actually in Miami with Ghislaine,' the source said.
'Rebecca was sitting there with her two young children watching this video of Scott and Ghislaine hugging and kissing.
'Rebecca was devastated. Things quickly fell apart after that.
'He moved out. As far as I understand, Rebecca had little financial support and she had to get a job as a caregiver.'
The source added: 'How could you throw all that away, those wonderful children and wife, for a woman who is 14 years older than him and allegedly has a role in this whole Epstein business?'
Epstein’s ‘co-conspirator’ flees US hours before FBI said ready to make arrests
THE woman who allegedly found underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse has left America, hours before the FBI said it was poised to make “several arrests”.
By CHRIS BUCKTIN
00:01, Sat, Nov 30, 2019 | UPDATED: 09:50, Sat, Nov 30, 2019
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1211252/jeffrey-Epstein-latest-Vi rginia-Roberts-giuffre-Adriana-ross-FBI-prince-andrew
Epstein: Lady Victoria Hervey felt 'uncomfortable' in New York
Adriana Ross, 36, has been accused of lining up teenagers for the convicted sex offender and is also said to have known about his friendship with the Duke of York. Last night, as FBI sources said preparations were being made for “several arrests”, Ross was seen arriving at Miami’s cruise terminal with her husband. The former model was one of four female “potential co-conspirators” granted immunity when Epstein was jailed in 2008. Ross’s decision to leave the country comes just days before an explosive BBC documentary with Prince Andrew’s chief accuser is due to air.
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Jeffrey Epstein
Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein (Image: Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images)
Virginia Giuffre
Virginia Giuffre discusses Prince Andrew and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal on Panorama special (Image: @BBCPanorama /Twitter)
Virginia Giuffre to feature in Epstein Panorama special
Play Video
In an hour-long Panorama special, “sex slave” Virginia Roberts – now Giuffre – will give her side of the story.
Ms Giuffre, who claims to have had sex with the prince when she was just 17, has previously said: “He knows what happened, I know what happened and there’s only one of us telling the truth.”
US Attorney General Bill Barr has vowed to bring anyone in Epstein’s circle to justice.
Last week, he told how “good progress” had been made in the case.
Previously, Mr Barr has said: “Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice – and they will get it.” _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
MintPress speaks with Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy who worked closely with Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, as part of their work with Israeli military intelligence and had frequent encounters with Jeffrey Epstein.
by Whitney Webb
December 13th, 2019
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
MONTREAL — In recent weeks, renewed attention has been brought to the allegations that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking and sexual blackmail operation was run on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. Those claims revolve around statements made by a former Israeli military intelligence official turned public relations consultant Ari Ben-Menashe, whose allegations regarding the Epstein scandal were reported by MintPress this past October.
Ben-Menashe’s claims related to Epstein first surfaced in an interview between Ben-Menashe and Zev Shalev of the independent news outlet, Narativ. As detailed in a MintPress summary and commentary of that interview, Ben-Menashe claimed to have seen Jeffrey Epstein in the office of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, several times in the 1980s.
At the time, Ben-Menashe was in close contact with Robert Maxwell regarding their work mutual work with Israeli military intelligence. Maxwell, in addition to heading a media empire and being a one-time member of U.K. parliament, was a longtime operative for Israeli intelligence, so much so that his 1991 funeral was attended by no less than six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence as well as several high-ranking Israeli politicians and prime ministers.
Maxwell is alleged to have recruited Jeffrey Epstein for Israeli intelligence and later introduced Epstein to Ben-Menashe and another operative, Nicholas Davies. Epstein was introduced to Ben-Menashe as having been pre-approved by leading figures in Israel’s military intelligence directorate, known as Aman.
MintPress recently conducted its own interview with Mr. Ben-Menashe as part of an ongoing investigation on the life and connections of the now-infamous Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein special coverage banner
Part of that interview is provided below with relevant commentary, particularly regarding claims related to the relationship between Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Epstein’s trip to Tel Aviv immediately prior to his first arrest, and the reasons for Israeli military intelligence’s interest in orchestrating and financing a major sexual blackmail operation targeting top U.S. politicians.
“Israel Requested that Epstein Target Clinton”
MintPress News first asked Ben-Menashe about Robert Maxwell, a known asset and operative for Israeli intelligence, having recruited Jeffrey Epstein. Ben-Menashe =confirmed this to MintPress and also noted that, after their initial meeting, Epstein was frequently present in Maxwell’s office in London.
During the 1980s, as MintPress previously reported, Epstein claimed to have been an intelligence operative and so-called “bounty hunter” in the world of shadow finance. During this time, he was known to have developed close relationships with several British arms dealers, particularly Sir Douglas Leese. Thus, Epstein appeared to frequently be traveling between the Middle East and London, which is also supported by Epstein’s now-infamous Austrian passport which he was believed to have carried during this period of time.
Ben-Menashe told MintPress that he had not only met Epstein after Epstein had been recently recruited by Israeli military intelligence, but had seen him on several occasions thereafter as Epstein “used to be in [Robert Maxwell’s] office [in London] quite often” and would arrive there between trips to and from Israel.
In addition, Ben-Menashe revealed his understanding of why Epstein was eventually shepherded into acting as a professional sexual blackmailer on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. Per Ben-Menashe, there were concerns among Israeli intelligence figures that, following the Reagan Era, a new president would push for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians, something those officials sought to avoid by any means necessary.
ABM | Here’s the thing… Mr. Carter… as in President Carter… the Israelis feared that Mr. Clinton, when he was campaigning for President, will be a repeat of Mr. Carter. He wanted to press them for peace with the Palestinians and all that stuff. They feared… Clinton wasn’t that… but they feared he was that… And I think Mr. Epstein was sent early on to catch up with President Clinton.
MintPress News (MPN) | Well, that’s interesting because the first year Clinton was in office, Epstein was already attending donor dinners at the White House and making White House visits as well.
ABM | Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I believe his biggest client was Mr. Clinton catch, or catch, or whatever, and he had a few other congressmen and what not but Clinton was, was his biggest catch.
Thus, Ben-Menashe argues, when Bill Clinton’s candidacy in the 1992 U.S. Presidential election became clear, efforts were made to target him via sexual blackmail and Jeffrey Epstein was chosen for that purpose. Bill Clinton was eventually blackmailed by the state of Israel and his administration was also targeted by Israeli espionage as part of the “Mega” spy scandal. Epstein’s involvement in the Clinton administration and his visits to the White House date back to Clinton’s first year in office. More information on the Epstein-Clinton relationship can be found in this MintPress report.
In addition, MintPress also asked Ben-Menashe if he was aware of Ghislaine Maxwell being directly involved with her father’s intelligence-related activities prior to his death in 1991. Ben-Menashe noted that Ghislaine accompanied her father so frequently, including on a now-infamous 1989 party on Maxwell’s yacht where Donald Trump and several key figures in the PROMIS software scandal were in attendance, that she was involved in his intelligence-related activities to some extent. However, he stopped short of saying how involved she was or what she has specifically been involved in prior to her father’s death.
When did Epstein really meet Ehud Barak?
One of the more controversial ties between Epstein and powerful politicians is that between Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak has claimed to have only met Epstein in 2002 and, from that point on, their relationship was very public, with Barak frequently visiting and even spending the night at residences owned by Epstein, including apartments where he housed the underage girls that he exploited. Barak also visited Epstein’s now-infamous island and recruited him to help fund the Israeli intelligence-connected company, Carbyne911.
However, there appear to be indications that Epstein and Barak may have met much earlier than Barak has since claimed. Given that Ben-Menashe claimed to have learned of Epstein’s recruitment by Israeli military intelligence in the 1980s, MintPress asked if one of the people involved in his recruitment was Ehud Barak. Barak served as head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate, Aman, from April 1983 to January 1986.
Ben-Menashe could not recall the exact year when he first became aware of Epstein’s recruitment by Israeli military intelligence but stated that it was “most likely” during Ehud Barak’s tenure as the head of Aman. Yet, even if Epstein’s recruitment did not take place while Barak headed Aman, it is highly likely — per Ben-Menashe — that Epstein had met Barak during this time because “Robert Maxwell became buddies with Ehud Barak…and he [Robert Maxwell] probably introduced them, the young man [Epstein] to Mr. Barak” if the two were not already acquainted.
Since the Epstein scandal broke, Ehud Barak has insisted that he did not meet Epstein until the year 2002 and claimed that the two had been introduced by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Ben-Menashe dismissed the possibility that this claim was true, emphatically stating that he was “sure they had met before” and that he did not believe that their first meeting was in 2002.
Epstein’s 2008 Trip to Tel Aviv
Just a few months before he was sentenced to prison for the first time in June 2008, Jeffrey Epstein had made a sudden visit to the Israeli capital of Tel Aviv. In April of that year, the Palm Beach Daily News reported that Epstein was staying at the Tel Aviv Hilton and quoted an Epstein spokesman as saying that he was “spending Passover, meeting with Israeli research scientists, and taking a tour of military bases.”
Sometime prior to Epstein’s sentencing on June 30 of that year, Alexander Acosta –then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida– signed off on a lenient sentence for Epstein who was charged with soliciting sex from a minor. That legal arrangement has since been nicknamed the “sweetheart deal.” Acosta later told Trump transition officials prior to his nomination for Secretary of Labor that his decision to approve the “sweetheart deal” came after he had been told to back off in the Epstein case because Epstein “belonged to intelligence.”
Though Acosta did not specify from whom he had received this information, former CIA agent Phil Giraldi has made a convincing case that they originated from Epstein’s then-lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a close associate of Epstein with ties to high-ranking Israeli politicians, and Barry Krischer, then-Florida State Attorney for Palm Beach who recently received an award from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for his “outstanding contribution to the legal profession and to the community at large.”
As detailed in a previous MintPress report on Epstein’s ties to Israel published this past August, the ADL’s long-time top funders have close ties to Epstein and his sexual blackmail network, particularly the Bronfman family of Seagrams fame.
Ben-Menashe told MintPress that Epstein’s 2008 Tel Aviv visit was likely “blowing smoke” and involved Epstein “trying to make himself important maybe not to get arrested” and “hoping that the Israelis would help him.” He then added that “At the time they probably did” help Epstein, but added that “the second time around [i.e. 2019], well…it would be a harder sell.”
Feature photo | A graphic shows Ari Ben-Menashe, left, and Jeffery Epstein, right. Credit | Claudio Cabrera
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
ARI BEN-MENASHE GHISLAINE MAXWELL ISRAEL JEFFREY EPSTEIN MOSSAD ROBERT MAXWELL _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty/YouTube
Editor's note: On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein died in an apparent jailhouse suicide. For more information, see The Daily Beast's reporting here.
For decades, financier Jeffrey Epstein allegedly abused dozens of underage girls in a sex-trafficking enterprise, according to a new federal indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York.
But in order to successfully “create a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit” and expand his network of possible targets, he relied on the loyalty and organizational skills of his employees, prosecutors claim.
According to the 14-page indictment filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, the 66-year-old hedge-fund manager/convicted sex offender “worked and conspired with others, including employees and associates” to run a sex-trafficking enterprise between 2002 and 2005, preying on “dozens” of girls as young as 14 at his mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida.
During each encounter listed in the indictment—which charges Epstein with one count of sex trafficking and one count of sex-trafficking conspiracy—girls were taken to a room to perform “massages” nude or partially nude before Epstein would escalate the encounter to “include one or more sex acts.”
“Epstein typically would also masturbate during these sexualized encounters, ask victims to touch him while he masturbated, and touch victims’ genitals with his hands or with sex toys,” the indictment states, adding the money man knew that the girls were minors.
After the assault, prosecutors allege, Epstein or his associates would pay each girl hundreds of dollars in cash and often would turn the victim into a recruiter of new girls to abuse.
“In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit,” the indictment said. The indictment goes on to detail three anonymous victims and refers to three unnamed employees who allegedly assisted Epstein in the enterprise, including by making calls to arrange for “massages” for Epstein.
It’s not the first time that Epstein’s employees and associates have been accused of helping procure underage girls for his abuse.
In Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida—which was granted by then-prosecutor and now-Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and other DOJ attorneys, without informing the billionaire’s alleged victims—four women are named as possible accomplices. Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement, which sentenced him to 18 months in prison, also granted immunity to the four women and any other “potential co-conspirators," identified in the document as “including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova.”
“While Epstein was at the head of the international sex trafficking organization, that conspiracy could not have functioned without many others playing their part,” attorney Paul Cassell, who represents multiple victims of Epstein, told The Daily Beast after Epstein’s arrest on Saturday. “Jane Doe 1 and 2 will continue to fight for all of Epstein’s co-conspirators to be held accountable in New York, Florida, and anywhere else they committed crimes.”
Details of Epstein’s alleged trafficking in Monday’s indictment mirror the accounts of scores of underage women in Florida, who described several “schedulers” who organized his alleged sex sessions and one young woman, described as Epstein’s “sex slave,” who would allegedly participate in the abuse while the billionaire watched.
But where are Epstein’s alleged accomplices now?
Sarah Kellen
Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s former assistant who allegedly kept a Rolodex of young girls to recruit for her employer, is now married to NASCAR driver Brian Vickers. Along with traveling with her husband, the 39-year-old (who also goes by the name Sarah Kensington) is the owner of an interior-design firm, SLK Designs.
“Sarah Kensington makes a living doing what she loves in life, interior design,” a Facebook page connected to SLK Designs states. “She is the owner of SLK Designs LLC. and has studies at several schools including the University of Hawaii and New York School of Interior Design.” The social-media page also details Sarah’s interests, which include “fashion, photography, travel, delicious cuisine, and anything design related.”
The page also notes that Sarah “is working with a number of clients on various projects including renovating several corporate apartments in New York, the Caribbean, and Paris. For the houses that Sarah manages, she does a number of duties which can involve organizing staff schedules, looking for and interviewing housekeepers and chefs, purchase and source items that are needed for the household (flatware, dishes, furniture, art, etc.), design floral arrangements, and interior design.”
Epstein also owns homes in New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Paris.
According to public records, SLK Designs once operated from a building in Midtown Manhattan owned by Epstein’s property-manager brother, Mark Epstein. The condominium listed to take SLK Designs deliveries, at 301 E. 66th St., is the same address where Epstein allegedly rented units to house models.
Though not directly named in Monday’s indictment, Kellen has been accused in court documents related to the Florida case of booking the “massages,” often calling girls to ensure they “were available for encounters” when Epstein would travel to Palm Beach. Several alleged victims in Florida told authorities they were led to and from the upstairs room in Epstein’s mansion by a woman named Sarah, after she lined up the oils on his massage table. According to one police report, Kellen also warned the girls not to talk to authorities about the encounters.
Monday’s indictment contains similar allegations about unnamed Epstein employees. “When a victim initially arrived at the Palm Beach Residence, she would be escorted to a room, sometimes by an employee of Epstein’s, including, at times, two assistants who, as described herein, were also responsible for scheduling sexual encounters with minor victims,” the Monday indictment states.
Kellen also reportedly traveled on Epstein’s private plane with former President Bill Clinton on at least 11 flights between 2002 and 2003, according to flight logs published by Gawker in 2015.
Kellen, who has properties in North Carolina, New York, and Miami Beach, did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. A NASCAR spokesperson told The Daily Beast the organization does “not have a comment” about Kellen’s alleged misconduct.
Nadia Marcinkova
Nadia Marcinkova, Epstein’s alleged “sex slave” who was accused of participating in sexual encounters with underage girls, is now an FAA-certified commercial pilot and flight instructor. Marcinkova, 33, who was allegedly brought from the former Yugoslavia to live with Epstein, now goes by the named “Global Girl” on social media, and has changed her last name.
“Global Girl (Nadia Marcinko) spent many years in the international marketing and advertising world as an international fashion model and spokesperson, with clients including Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Vogue and MTV. After many successful years in the modeling industry, she was ready for longer runways and became a licensed commercial pilot,” her Facebook account states, adding that she is an “FAA certified flight instructor and Gulfstream II, III & IV pilot.”
Marcinkova also is the founder and CEO of Aviloop, a website selling discounted flying lessons and other deals related to aviation. Since 2011, Aviloop provides a slew of services, including designing custom pilot team and “organizing team building events.” As with Kellen, the aviation company is registered at the building once owned by Mark Epstein and allegedly used as a model clubhouse by his brother.
Though Marcinkova originally started calling herself "Gulfstream Girl,” she was sued in 2013 by Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. for trademark infringement. On Jan. 6, 2014, the lawsuit filed in a New York Southern District court was settled after Marcinko changed her online name to Global Girl.
According to written testimony by several alleged victims, Marcinkova is described as having “encouraged and engaged in sexual acts” with young girls while Epstein watched. According to police, Epstein told one victim Marcinkova was his “sex slave” and that he’d purchased her from her family in the former Yugoslavia when she was 15. Marcinkova is not directly named in Monday’s indictment.
Marcinkova, who lives in New York, did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Adriana Ross
Adriana Ross, a former model from Poland who allegedly helped organize Epstein’s predatory sessions, moved to Florida in 2002 and was hired to work at the financier’s mansion. Ross, who often went by Adriana Mucinska and is not directly named in Monday’s indictment, also frequently flew on Epstein’s private jet alongside Bill Clinton, according to flight records.
Along with her fellow alleged co-conspirators, Ross was questioned in 2010 about whether Britain’s Prince Andrew participated in Epstein’s alleged sex enterprise. Refusing to answer questions about the inner workings of the alleged scheme, Ross repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, according to previous reports. As previously reported by The Daily Beast, Ross also lived at the East 66th Street building in Manhattan.
Ross’ current profession or address was not immediately clear and she could not be reached for comment.
Lesley Groff
Lesley Groff was another Epstein assistant who allegedly coordinated travel for young girls, often calling to schedule “massages.” Though not directly named in Monday’s indictment, the 51-year-old has been previously named as one of Epstein’s three female assistants. According to a 2005 Chicago Tribune story about executive-assistant pay, Epstein divulged his assistants made about $200,000.
“They are an extension of my brain. Their intuition is something that I don’t have,” Epstein told the Tribune. According to public records, Groff currently lives in Connecticut and did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Pilar Melendez
Reporter
@pbmelendez
Pilar.Melendez@thedailybeast.com _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2020 10:19 pm Post subject:
Jeffrey Epstein's socialite 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell 'is being hidden from the FBI in a series of safe houses because of the information she has on powerful people'
Maxwell has remained incognito since Epstein's arrest and death behind bars
New report claims both she and Epstein were 'assets' for a foreign government
Source says they funneled dirt on the rich and powerful to foreign spies
Now Maxwell may be hiding in a safehouse in Israel, the new report claims
She is a British and US citizen, and daughter of an alleged Mossad operative
By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7843659/Ghislaine-Maxwell-rep ortedly-foreign-spy-hiding-Israel.html
PUBLISHED: 00:13, 2 January 2020 | UPDATED: 04:19, 2 January 2020
An explosive new report has asserted that deceased sex criminal Jeffery Epstein and his alleged 'madame' Ghislaine Maxwell were foreign intelligence 'assets', and that she is currently hiding in a safehouse in Israel.
'Ghislaine is protected. She and Jeffrey were assets of sorts for multiple foreign governments. They would trade information about the powerful people caught in his net — caught at Epstein's house,' a unnamed source told Page Six.
Maxwell, 58, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein to sexually traffick among his wealthy and powerful friends, and is reportedly the subject of an ongoing FBI probe.
She has always denied any wrongdoing. Her attorney did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com on Wednesday evening.
After Epstein's re-arrest last year and death behind bars in August, Maxwell has remained out of sight and her whereabouts unknown.
Maxwell, 58, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein to sexually traffick among his wealthy and powerful friends. They are seen together on Wall Street in 2005 +9
Maxwell, 58, has been accused in lawsuits of procuring underage girls for Epstein to sexually traffick among his wealthy and powerful friends. They are seen together on Wall Street in 2005
Now the Page Six source claims she is being protected by powerful foreign interests.
'She is not in the US, she moves around. She is sometimes in the UK, but most often in other countries, such as Israel, where her powerful contacts have provided her with safe houses and protection,' the source said.
Maxwell is being 'protected because of the information she has on the world's most powerful people,' the source said.
The source also claimed that Prince Andrew begged Maxwell to come forward and clear his name, after Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed Epstein forced her to have sex with the royal when she was 17.
Prince Andrew, 59, strenuously denies having sex with Roberts and claims he can't remember meeting her despite a photograph of him with his arm around her.
'Andrew pleaded with Ghislaine to publicly defend him. She carefully considered it, but decided no good would come of it (if she came forward). It isn't in her best interests,' the source told Page Six.
Andrew resigned from royal duties after giving a disastrous interview on Newsnight in November.
Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001. Maxwell reportedly was the one who first introduced Epstein and Andrew +9
Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001. Maxwell reportedly was the one who first introduced Epstein and Andrew
It is not the first time that Epstein has been tied to a foreign intelligence service. Rumors have long circulated that Epstein secretly took videos of his rich and powerful friends having sex with underage girls, either for financial blackmail or as leverage for a foreign intelligence service.
So far, however, the FBI has not publicly confirmed whether any such blackmail material was recovered in raids on his properties.
Since Epstein's arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in July, Maxwell has remained out of sight, save for photos that purported to show her at an In-and-Out Burger in Los Angeles. DailyMail.com revealed that those photos were staged, possibly to throw investigators off of her trail.
Born in France, Maxwell is both a U.S. citizen and British subject. Her family's alleged ties to Israel's national intelligence service, Mossad, have been well documented.
Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, was a Czech-born British media mogul whose financial fraud in raiding the Mirror Group pension fund was discovered after his death in 1991.
Also a British member of parliament, Robert Maxwell reportedly had ties to British intelligence, the Soviet KGB, and Mossad — and was suspected of being a double or even triple agent by British Foreign Office officials.
Ghislaine (left) is seen in 1987 with her mother and father, the pension-raiding one-time owner of Britain's Daily Mirror and New York's Daily News, and alleged Mossad operative +9
Ghislaine (left) is seen in 1987 with her mother and father, the pension-raiding one-time owner of Britain's Daily Mirror and New York's Daily News, and alleged Mossad operative
After his mysterious death on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, off the Canary Islands in 1991, Robert Maxwell was buried in Jerusalem with high honors, with Israel's prime minister and multiple current and former heads of Israeli intelligence services in attendance at the funeral.
His favorite daughter, Ghislaine, first met Epstein in the early 1990s, at a party in New York City.
The two had a romantic relationship for several years, but the exact nature of their relationship over the following decades remains unclear.
Epstein's household staff have described her as 'Lady of the House' and sworn in depositions that she was at the center of managing his household affairs.
'They were like partners in business,' Janusz Banasiak, Epstein's house manager, said in a deposition.
Epstein's butler, Alfredo Rodriguez, described Ghislaine Maxwell in a deposition as 'the boss.'
Epstein's accusers have said that Maxwell's authority extended to managing the complex logistics of his perverse activities with girls as young as 14.
'She orchestrated the whole thing for Jeffrey,' said Sarah Ransome, one of some two dozen women who spoke out before a federal judge in New York in August.
Epstein and Maxwell are seen at Batman Forever premier in New York in 1995. Maxwell was close to Epstein for years and is reportedly the subject of an FBI probe into his inner circle +9
Epstein and Maxwell are seen at Batman Forever premier in New York in 1995. Maxwell was close to Epstein for years and is reportedly the subject of an FBI probe into his inner circle
Maxwell is seen posing in 1999 for a photo shoot to promote Sotheby's vintage fashion collection that left assistants taken aback by her 'intensely sexual vibe'
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen on a pheasant ahoot with Prince Andrew in Sandringham, Norfolk, Britain in December 2000
Some of the most serious allegations have come from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused Maxwell in a lawsuit of luring her to become an international sex slave for Epstein and his pals.
Roberts says that she was 16 or 17 in the summer of 2000 and working as a towel girl at Mar-a-Lago when Maxwell approached her, eventually leading to her being flown around the world on Epstein's 'Lolita Express.'
Roberts' recently unsealed lawsuit claims that Maxwell 'actively took part in recruiting underage girls and young women for sex with Epstein, as well as scheduling the girls to come over, and maintaining a list of the girls and their phone number.'
Maxwell has strenuously denied in the past that she was involved in criminal sex trafficking or any other sex crimes.
After Epstein took a sweetheart plea deal in 2008 to state charges of procuring for prostitution and served a one-year jail sentence in Florida, Maxwell and Epstein were no longer spotted together at public events.
She remained active on the New York social scene for several years, however, until mounting lawsuits and allegations began to draw harsher scrutiny.
In April of 2016, the New York townhouse where she had lived was sold for $15 million, and around the fall of 2016, she was no longer seen or photographed publicly.
She was last spotted publicly at a social event in Geneva, Switzerland on June 8, less than a month prior to Epstein's re-arrest in the U.S.
Earlier this week, the Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts called for Maxwell to be brought forward to face the justice system.
Earlier this week, Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre (seen in a BBC interview) called for Maxwell to be brought forward to face the justice system +9
Earlier this week, Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre (seen in a BBC interview) called for Maxwell to be brought forward to face the justice system
'How is anyone, friend or family member, hiding such a monster?? 99% of the population would turn [in] Ghislaine Maxwell. Who's hiding who and why??' Roberts tweeted.
'Maxwell’s downfall will be her arrogance- in her eyes always above the law,' Roberts added.
'She is diabolically evil. I would suggest to whoever is hiding her or knows whereabouts she is, to turn her in as she’d easily throw anyone who gets in her way under the bus,' she continued.
Epstein died in federal custody in August while facing sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by New York City's medical examiner, but his lawyers have disputed that finding.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:18 am Post subject:
Prince Andrew's friend Ghislaine Maxwell, the former lover of paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, is under 24-hour guard by former US Navy Seals amid fears for her life
Ghislaine Maxwell is being guarded round the clock by former US Navy SEALs
A source says she is moving between safe houses after 'credible death threats'
Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victims have portrayed her as his 'madam' and 'fixer'
The 58-year-old former girlfriend of Epstein has denied any wrongdoing
By IAN GALLAGHER CHIEF REPORTER FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7852153/Ghislaine-Maxwell-for mer-lover-Jeffrey-Epstein-24-hour-guard-amid-fears-life.html
PUBLISHED: 22:01, 4 January 2020 | UPDATED: 03:18, 5 January 2020
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, is being guarded round the clock by former US Navy SEALs amid concern that her life is in danger, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
A source says ex-special forces are shuttling the 58-year-old friend of Prince Andrew from one safe house to another across the American Midwest following ‘credible death threats’.
Epstein is said to have sexually abused dozens of teenage girls and Miss Maxwell, along with others, is alleged to have ‘facilitated’ his behaviour. She has denied any wrongdoing.
Ghislaine Maxwell, right, with Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, centre, in 2001. A source says ex-special forces are shuttling Miss Maxwell from one safe house to another +3
Ghislaine Maxwell, right, with Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, centre, in 2001. A source says ex-special forces are shuttling Miss Maxwell from one safe house to another
She is now the principal focus of an FBI investigation and is said to hold the key to the truth about the Duke of York’s relationship with the disgraced financier and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. The Duke has repeatedly denied these allegations and any suggestion of wrongdoing.
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While Miss Maxwell has never been accused by the authorities of criminal wrongdoing, Epstein’s alleged victims have portrayed her as his ‘madam’ and ‘fixer’.
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A source said: ‘There has been so much rubbish written about Ghislaine. The reality is she receives multiple, credible death threats on a daily basis. The hate mail is sometimes 2ft high.
‘She is constantly moving. Her life is in danger. She is being guarded by the best of the very best and that includes former US Navy SEALs. She’s not under the protection of any government. She’s on her own.’
Miss Maxwell has allegedly refused to defend Prince Andrew publicly. A source told the New York Post she 'carefully considered it' but decided it 'wasn't in her best interests' +3
Miss Maxwell has allegedly refused to defend Prince Andrew publicly. A source told the New York Post she 'carefully considered it' but decided it 'wasn't in her best interests'
Miss Maxwell and Epstein. While Miss Maxwell has never been accused by the authorities of criminal wrongdoing, Epstein’s alleged victims have portrayed her as his ‘madam’ and ‘fixer’ +3
Miss Maxwell and Epstein. While Miss Maxwell has never been accused by the authorities of criminal wrongdoing, Epstein’s alleged victims have portrayed her as his ‘madam’ and ‘fixer’
Asked about reports last week that Miss Maxwell was being sheltered in Israel and supported by wealthy friends, the source said: ‘I only wish. This is costing her a fortune. She moves constantly. The reports are just b*******.’
Prince Andrew was forced to step back from public life following a disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with Epstein, who was found dead in his cell last year. During the interview, the Duke invoked his friendship with Miss Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell, as the reason he came into Epstein’s orbit.
‘Extra bed sheets and cord found in Epstein’s jail cell’
Multiple bed sheets and an electrical cord were reportedly found in Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell after he killed himself, a US current affairs show claims.
When the body of the disgraced financier was discovered – possibly up to two hours after he died – guards were heard saying: ‘Breathe, Epstein, breathe.’
CBS’s 60 Minutes, due to be screened today, raises fresh questions about the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where Epstein was being held when he died last August.
His death has been ruled a suicide by hanging.
As well as more sheets than were required for the cell, 60 Minutes says a pen, paper and handwritten note were found.
Last month, Virginia Roberts, who now uses her married name Giuffre, accused the Duke of knowing she been trafficked to the UK when they allegedly met when she was 17. She has previously claimed Andrew bought her alcohol in London’s Tramp nightclub before they had sex at Miss Maxwell’s home.
The Duke has repeatedly denied the allegation, insisting he spent the evening at home after taking his eldest daughter Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey.
Last week it was claimed he begged Miss Maxwell to defend him publicly, but she reportedly refused. A source told the New York Post: ‘She carefully considered it, but decided no good would come of it. It isn’t in her best interests.’
Sources told The Mail on Sunday Miss Maxwell has become ‘increasingly frustrated’ with the ‘lies’ being told about her. One said: ‘She’s become the most hunted and hated woman in the world. The reality is she’s done nothing wrong. Her life has been ruined but she’s fully confident she will be vindicated.
‘She believes her good name will be cleared – eventually. There is another side to the story and it will come out. For now, people assume she is guilty. She’s living a nightmare and trusts no one.
‘Ghislaine is prepared to face it in a court of law but not in the court of the media or Twitter. She has a story to tell and she will tell it when the time is right.’
The patron was said to be building a vast mansion on his ranch in New Mexico and, at the end of the trip, would commission one of the students to paint a mural at the completed house.
“There was a feeling that someone was going to come out of this an art star,” Ursula Ruedenberg, one of the alumnae on the trip, told Artnet News.
There was just one problem: The patron was Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and pedophile who died in a New York City jail in August. The encounter with Epstein on his ranch, detailed to Artnet News by three of the alumnae (one of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity), sheds fresh light on how Epstein exploited the ambitions of aspiring artists by promising sales and connections, all while testing their boundaries and, ultimately, allegedly assaulting one of them, Maria Farmer, Epstein’s first accuser.
Maria Farmer holds an image of a painting she made during the alumnae trip to New Mexico and gave to Epstein.
Conflicting Memories
Epstein had purchased the 10,000-acre Zorro Ranch on a mesa between Santa Fe and Albuquerque two years before the alumnae trip. At the time the students arrived, he was in the process of building a Wild West-style village on the property, complete with a saloon and general store. This was where numerous women would later say they were trafficked and raped, and where Epstein plotted to mass-impregnate women and “seed the human race with his DNA,” according to the New York Times. But for now, his future mansion had yet to be built and he was living in a temporary trailer on the land with his accused co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
The alumnae say they were brought to the ranch by Eileen Guggenheim, then dean of students at the New York Academy of Art and now chair of its board, who was friendly with Epstein because he had been an academy trustee for the past seven years. When Artnet News first reported Maria Farmer’s account of how Guggenheim encouraged her relationship with Epstein, in part by bringing her to the ranch, Guggenheim responded that the story was “a serious mischaracterization. I have never been at Mr. Epstein’s home in Santa Fe.”
However, earlier this month, a second alumna contacted Artnet News to corroborate Farmer’s story—saying that she, too, had been at the ranch that day and confirming that the meeting with Epstein, Guggenheim, and the students did indeed happen. “Guggenheim’s misrepresentation appears to aim at dismissing Farmer’s concerns—but kind of raises new ones,” she wrote.
A third former student confirmed that the trip with New York Academy of Art students to Epstein’s home occurred, and that Guggenheim was present, but remembered few further details.
“There may be some confusion about my visit 25 years ago to Mr. Epstein’s property,” Guggenheim told Artnet News when asked about the additional accounts. “What I remember is visiting an old-fashioned Western town that Mr. Epstein had apparently purchased and was under construction. To the best of my recollection, I did not visit any home there or have a meal there.”
Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, as seen on Google Earth.
Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, as seen on Google Earth.
A Day on the Ranch
Both Farmer and Ruedenberg say that they felt unsettled from the moment they arrived on the property.
“It was a huge scary ranch on this big, ugly, dry desert,” Farmer recalled in a recent conversation with Artnet News. When Epstein gave them a tour of the grounds, he kept pointing out how many deadly rattlesnakes lived on the land. After they returned to the house, Maxwell instructed the students to put their coats in the closet. When they opened the door, they found a skeleton hanging inside.
“She was disappointed that we weren’t frightened by that,” Ruedenberg said. “She thought that we would be afraid of a skeleton—but as art students, all we do is look at skeletons.” For the rest of the day, “they proceeded to pull pranks on us all the time, to make us feel unstable,” Ruedenberg recalled.
The odd stunts continued at supper, when Epstein and Maxwell instructed their guests to close their eyes as they passed around a bag of unknown objects, and to reach inside and guess what they were. “One was what felt like pockets of jelly; it turned out to be falsies, like you put in your bra,” Ruedenberg said. “Then they demanded that we put them on.”
Ruedenberg refused and immediately felt shunned for not playing along. “I knew the commission was out the window at that very moment,” she said. “I could see it was a question of ‘how far will they go? Does this person have boundaries?'”
“It was the weirdest dinner party I’ve ever been to all my life,” she added. “I’ve been around a lot of rich people in New York and many are misbehaved, but this was another level.”
Farmer, who later went on to work for Epstein in New York, says that this was a party trick he often liked to play with sexual objects such as condoms. Maxwell’s role was to “normalize” it, Farmer said. “She had a light-hearted delivery so you never felt like—dun dun dun—you’re going to be kidnapped and raped. You just thought they were quirky and they love art.”
Ruedenberg says that Guggenheim and Maxwell treated her like a “square” after she declined to play along. “That dinner party should not have happened, it was inappropriate. I feel like when you’re in a position of responsibility to students and somebody acts the way they did, that’s cause to step back and assess whether this is a professional situation or not, and that definitely did not happen.”
Guggenheim says that she was not aware of any students taking issue with the encounter. “Had any student expressed to me their personal discomfort over actions by Mr. Epstein,” she told Artnet News in an email, “I would have immediately addressed the situation and offered my support. At that time, however, neither I nor anyone at the New York Academy of Art had any knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s predatory behavior.” (Epstein was first jailed for sex crimes in 2008.)
A painting Maria Farmer made during the alumnae trip to New Mexico and gave to Epstein.
Dangling a ‘Plastic Carrot’
Epstein’s promise to buy one of the students’ work from their summer class in Santa Fe, and then to commission them to create a mural, was “part of the conversation throughout the day,” Ruedenberg recalled.
“There was always that plastic carrot,” Farmer said. But both women say that Epstein never bought their work after the trip. Farmer says that she gave Epstein the two paintings she made there at Guggenheim’s urging, but was never paid for them. (Guggenheim previously told Artnet News that she has “never forced an art sale by an Academy student.”)
After Farmer returned to New York, Epstein hired her as his art adviser and she later traveled to Ohio to work on an art project at the estate of his friend Leslie Wexner, the billionaire businessman. That’s where Farmer claims that Epstein and Maxwell sexually assaulted her. Around the same time, the pair allegedly invited Farmer’s 16-year-old sister, Annie, to the New Mexico ranch under the guise of a student trip. When she arrived, Annie said nobody was there except Epstein and Maxwell, who allegedly assaulted her, too.
Farmer says that Epstein and Maxwell threatened to ruin her career if she spoke out about what happened. Instead, she moved away from New York and, for a long time, stopped painting.
Ruedenberg, too, says that although she didn’t experience anything like what Farmer went through, the experience with Epstein soured her on the art world. “I was so fed up with that whole scene, and [Epstein] was part of it,” she said. “I left New York. I just thought, I don’t want to paint for these people, and I stepped out of that whole world.”
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Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
By Tim Stickings For Dailymail.com
09:24, 28 Jan 2020 , updated 14:04, 28 Jan 2020
21 comments Latest From MailOnline
Ursula Ruedenberg says Epstein and Maxwell left their visitors 'unsettled'
She says she visited the Zorro Ranch in 1995 with Epstein accuser Maria Farmer
They went to the ranch in the hope that Epstein would commission their artwork
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell told visiting art school graduates to put false breasts in their bras at the pedophile's New Mexico ranch, one of their guests has alleged.
Ursula Ruedenberg says Epstein and his girlfriend played a series of bizarre pranks on their guests which left them wondering: 'How far will they go?'.
The New York Academy of Art graduate told ArtNet she went to the dinner party at the Zorro Ranch along with Epstein accuser Maria Farmer, after they were told that Epstein was a wealthy art patron who was interested in commissioning their work.
Farmer said Maxwell, who denies involvement in Epstein's crimes, had been playing a 'light-hearted' role in order to 'normalize' the use of sexual objects.
Pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell (right, pictured together in New York in 2005) are accused of playing a bizarre sexual game +6
Pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell (right, pictured together in New York in 2005) are accused of playing a bizarre sexual game
Recalling the dinner party in 1995, Ruedenberg and Farmer say they felt 'unsettled' from the moment they arrived at the Zorro Ranch with a handful of fellow graduates.
Ruedenberg said that Epstein and Maxwell tried to scare them by pointing out how many rattlesnakes lived on the huge ranch.
Maxwell apparently opened a cupboard with literal skeletons in it and played a succession of pranks on her guests in a bid to 'make us feel unstable'.
At dinner, Epstein and Maxwell allegedly told their guests to rummage in a bag containing unknown objects.
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'One was what felt like pockets of jelly; it turned out to be falsies, like you put in your bra. Then they demanded that we put them on,' Ruedenberg said.
'I knew the commission was out the window at that very moment. I could see it was a question of how far will they go? Does this person have boundaries?'
The art graduate said Maxwell had treated her like a 'square' after she refused to take part in the alleged prank.
Ruedenberg also described it as the 'weirdest dinner party I’ve ever been to all my life', adding she had been around many rich people in New York.
Epstein accuser Maria Farmer (pictured) is said to have been at the dinner party along with New York Academy of Art graduate Ursula Ruedenberg +6
Epstein accuser Maria Farmer (pictured) is said to have been at the dinner party along with New York Academy of Art graduate Ursula Ruedenberg
Ghislaine Maxwell's emails have allegedly been hacked
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Farmer, who separately alleges that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell in 1996, says Maxwell's role was to 'normalize' the use of such items.
Epstein would habitually play tricks such as this with sexual objects such as condoms, she claims.
'[Maxwell] had a light-hearted delivery so you never felt like you're going to be kidnapped and raped. You just thought they were quirky and they love art,' Farmer said.
Epstein hinted at interest in commissioning artworks, but no such offer ever materialized, the art students say.
Farmer and her sister, Annie Farmer, filed a lawsuit against Epstein's estate last November.
The secluded 8,000-acre Zorro Ranch includes an airstrip and a sprawling residence which Epstein began building in 1999.
In a 2015 court filing in Florida, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Epstein said she had been abused at several locations, including the New Mexico property.
New Mexico officials have been in contact with the federal investigators in New York who brought sex-trafficking charges against Epstein last year.
The women say went to the dinner party at Epstein's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico (pictured) after they were told that Epstein was a wealthy art patron who was interested in commissioning their work +6
The women say went to the dinner party at Epstein's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico (pictured) after they were told that Epstein was a wealthy art patron who was interested in commissioning their work
Inside Jeffrey Epstein's mysterious New Mexico ranch
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Epstein died in a Manhattan jail on August 10 while awaiting trial on the federal charges.
Two correctional officers responsible for watching Epstein have since been charged with lying on prison records to make it seem as though they had checked on him.
At the time of Epstein's arrest, prosecutors said they found a trove of pictures of nude and seminude young women and girls at his $77million Manhattan mansion.
The billionaire financier was already a convicted pedophile after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida.
However, he was jailed for only 18 months after striking a controversial plea agreement with prosecutors which was kept secret at the time.
In New Mexico he was allowed to avoid registering locally as a sex offender under a state law which is now being reconsidered.
Maxwell denies allegations that she took part in abuse or helped Epstein procure underage women.
Epstein pleaded his Fifth Amendment rights when asked about Maxwell. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
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Link Iraqi liberation with the plight of the Palestinian people. It is likely that the most effective argument(s) you have right now are those that link the right of the Iraqi people to live in freedom with the right of the Palestinian people to be governed by those who truly represent them. If you express your concern for the plight of the Palestinian people and how it is unfair, unjust and immoral that they should be forced to accept leaders who steal and kill in their name, you will be building credibility for your support of the average Palestinian while undermining the credibility of their leadership.